Arduino GIGA R1 WiFi board

‘Makers, step up your game.’ That’s the promise, or command, that Arduino makes about its new high-level board, the Arduino GIGA R1 WiFi.

 

It will, says Arduino, pack advanced features into an accessible component, with the same form factor as the Mega and Due.

Think of it as having two brains. One to deal with application specifics, perhaps, and the other to deal with general comms and status.

The ST Microcontroller (STM32H747XI) is a dual core 32-bit MCU, bringing tother a Cortex-M7 at 480 MHz and a Cortex-M4 at 240 MHz. Wi-Fi or Bluetooth wireless comms are supported by a Murata 1DX.

In terms of pins, there are 76 Digital I/O pins, 12 Analog inputs, 2 DAC (DAC0/DAC1), 12 PWM pins, and also VRT & OFF.

“Spring-boarding off the R&D efforts that power Arduino Pro products like Portenta H7, we have developed a product offering all the power of the STM32H7 microcontroller in the same form factor as the Mega and Due boards, at an accessible price point,” writes Arduino.

“It’s dual-core microcontroller allows you to run two Arduino programs simultaneously, or an Arduino program and a MicroPython one. With this architecture, you can separate higher-level logic such as displays, interfaces and networking, from time-critical tasks such as motor control.”

“The processor STM32H747XI processor runs at 3.3V and provides the IOs, which include 12x analogue, 13x PWM, 4x serial ports, 3x I2C, 2x SPI, FDCAN and one multi-standard serial audio interface (an STMicro ‘SAI’). Wi-Fi and Bluetooth Low Energy come via a Murata 1DX module. There is no internal antenna, but the board has a coax socket and an external antenna is supplied.

A USB-C connector is included for power (there is also a 6 – 24Vin pin) as well as programming and to allow the board to simulate a mouse or keyboard when connected to a PC.”