The Arduino Zero is designed as an extension of the Arduino UNO, which is one of the out of style hacking and coding platform from the Arduino series.
A big step in the Arduino world is expected to be once with the release of the Arduino Tre. The Tre is coming in the series of single board computers with a powerful processor and the ability to run a full version of Linux.
Arduino is preparing for us these days a lot of surprises by announcing the Arduino Zero and release a beta version of Arduino Tre. An interesting feature of the Zero is the extra micro-USB port able to work in both ‘Host’ and ‘Device’ mode.
Another attractive feature is the support of the USB port for the Atmel Embedded Debugger (EDBG). The Zero is the first microcontroller board for Arduino series designed to support this feature.
Why is so important to have support for EDBG? The EDGB is the ultimate software debugging tool for microcontrollers. Its features include a debugging interface able to work without additional hardware. With support for a virtual Com port, the EDBG can be used as a traditional Arduino bootloader.
For some of the Uno users perhaps it is not clear why Zero and why now, as well as they couldn’t find any reason to buy this microcontroller board. Also, it could be interesting to find if all the Uno projects can be moved on the Arduino Zero. All the reasons as well as the complete specifications of this embedded system will be clarified at the Maker Faire Bay Area 2014.
No word about price and the official release date.
Specifications
- Microcontroller: ATSAMD21G18, 48pins LQFP;
- Operating Voltage: 3.3V;
- Digital I/O Pins: 14, with 12 PWM and UART;
- Analog Input Pins: 6, including 5 12bits ADC channels and one 10 bits DAC;
- DC Current per I/O Pin: 7 mA;
- Flash Memory: 256 KB;
- SRAM: 32 KB;
- EEPROM: up to 16KB by emulation;
- Clock Speed: 48 MHz;
All the Arduino boards released until now has inspired tinkerers everywhere and works as a fuel for creativity of the maker community. The same community has many expectations from Arduino Zero and Tre.