2016/11/23

Intel Genuino 101

Well there seems to be a bit of a battle going on in Arduino land, so some of the boards are now known as Genuino (outside of the USA). This board, the 101, is produced by Intel and has a Curie processor (Quark architecture) and a 32bit ARC CPU (not ARM, this is a CPU based on the Argonaut Risc Core - remember Argonaut Software and Jez San), they're both clocked at 32MHz and are 32bit.

Though the board will act like a 'standard' Arduino and can be completely driven through the Arduino IDE, it actually runs an Intel Real Time Operating System (RTOS) that Intel has open sourced and is available through their download centre. When the IDE compiles the code it will do the right things and put the right bits on the correct core.

The 101 should support most UNO and Zero shields, though it's a 3.3V board (though Intel say it will tolerate 5V boards). It's powered either through a dedicated 5V socket or through the USB port. It's NOT microUSB but the older chunky USB B socket.

As well as the 2 cores, there's also a 3 axis accelerometer and 3 axis gyroscope so the board can sense it's spacial direction and movement and it also supports Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) meaning it can do things like become a beacon or talk to your phone.

The tech specs are

Operating Voltage3.3V (5V tolerant I/O)
Digital I/O Pins14 (of which 4 provide PWM output)
PWM Digital I/O Pins4
Analog Input Pins6
DC Current per I/O Pin20 mA
Flash Memory196 kB (though on-board 384KB rest for RTOS)
SRAM24 kB (80KB on-board again rest for RTOS)
Clock Speed32MHz
LED_BUILTINpin 13
FeaturesBluetooth LE, 6-axis accelerometer/gyroscope

So altogether a nice little Arduino (sorry Genduino) which is pretty fast and pretty compatible.

Pricing varies considerably on-line and it's available from around £16 all the way up to £35, and its available in a variety of kits.

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