Renesas RA4M1 32-bit maker board for the Arduino UNO R4 is available with an optional ESP32-S3 Wi-Fi and BLE module.
The Arduino UNO R4 board, which replaces the 8-bit Arduino UNO R3 board, comes with an optional ESP32-S3 module for WiFi 4 and Bluetooth 5.0 connection as well as a 48 MHz Renesas RA4M1 Arm Cortex-M4F 32-bit microcontroller.
Since the MCU is clocked three times faster than the 8bit AVR MCU found in the UNO R3 and the board gets sixteen times more RAM (32KB vs 2KB to 32kB) and eight times more flash memory, the new Arduino UNO R4 offered improved performance and greater resources (256KB vs 32kB). The UNO R4 can accept a supply voltage of up to 24V and has a USB Type-C device port instead of the older USB Type-B port.
A CAN bus and a 12-bit analog DAC are further additions to the new Arduino UNO R4 board. The new 32-bit Arduino UNO board will be available in two versions: UNO R4 WiFi and UNO R4 Minima, with the former including an ESP32-S3 module for wireless communication.
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In order to assure maximum hardware and electrical compatibility with current shields and projects, Arduino claims that pinout, voltage, and form factor remain unaltered from UNO R3. The business has also been working on the most popular Arduino libraries' retro compatibility so that customers may utilize existing tutorials and sketches created for the UNO R3 on the UNO R4. With the exception of libraries and examples (think assembly code) that need to be converted to the new Renesas RA architecture, this will be fine.
It's noteworthy to note that for their Portenta C33 board, a member of the Arduino Pro family for professional/business applications, Arduino also moved to a Renesas MCU. The Arduino UNO R3 is still available and will continue to be supported by manufacturers who wish to work with its 8-bit microcontroller, so this does not necessarily indicate they will abandon Microchip MCUs in the future.
The next 32-bit Arduino board, the Arduino UNO R4, is slated for availability in late May. But, if you are an Arduino library developer, you may be able to obtain a sample earlier through the company's early adopter program. The main product page has a waiting list that regular users can join.
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