At the BUILD conference, Atmel Corporation, a leader in microcontroller and touch solutions, and Arduino, the leading open-source electronics prototyping platform and community, announced they are collaborating on several development boards using Atmel AVR and ARM-based microcontroller (MCU) products. The new easy-to-use Arduino boards use several Atmel products including the Cortex-M3-based SAM3U MCU, ATmega32U4 and AVR UC3 MCUs.
Arduino is an open-source, community-based prototyping platform that offers accessible hardware and well-documented software to electronics enthusiasts. The community encompasses artists, designers, students, kids, hobbyists and anyone interested in creating interactive objects or environments. Committed to offering the shortest learning curve, Arduino has developed several boards featuring Atmel's AVR and ARM-based MCUs leveraging its complete, flexible software and hardware environments.
Atmel and Arduino will be demonstrating several platforms in the Atmel-sponsored Arduino Pavilion including:
- Arduino Leonardo. Based on the Atmel ATmega32u4, it is a low-cost Arduino board which includes a simpler circuit as the Arduino UNO board. The software on the board includes a USB driver that can simulate a mouse, keyboard and serial port. In addition, the bootloader includes a serial port and USB mass storage driver.
- Arduino Due. The newest board to Arduino's collection, the Arduino Due is based on an Atmel Cortex-M3-based microcontroller, also known as the Atmel SAM3U ARM-based MCU. This MCU can run up to 96MHz and will be available to the Arduino community by the end of 2011.
- Arduino WiFi. This board is for hobbyists interested in WiFi applications. Arduino WiFi includes an add-on module using the Atmel AVR MCU and an H&D Wireless module that provides developers with a powerful WiFi interface.
"Arduino is a grass roots community that has been working with Atmel AVR products since its inception," said Massimo Banzi, founder of the Arduino Community. "We are thrilled to use Atmel's ARM-based products for the first time in our latest development platforms. The new boards, based on the Atmel SAM3U ARM-based MCUs, include a complete, flexible eco-system that provides our community of developers with access to the most sophisticated, yet easy-to-use platforms for designing innovative and fun electronics devices," Banzi concluded.
"We are excited to be a sponsor of the Arduino Pavilion at the Maker Faire," said Alf Egil-Bogen, chief marketing officer, Atmel Corporation. "The Arduino community reaches a large group of university and hobbyist communities focused on developing new designs. We've seen this community grow from grass roots to a well-established organization of true enthusiasts and hobbyists. We are excited to work with Arduino on a variety of different projects in the future."
