Qualcomm Acquires Arduino, Launches the New Arduino UNO Q Single-Board Pc

Qualcomm is constant its acquisition spree, and its newest goal is none apart from Arduino: the agency has been snapped up for an undisclosed sum, the most important user-facing consequence of which is the discharge of a brand-new Arduino UNO powered by a Qualcomm Dragonwing system-on-chip — turning the enduring growth board into a completely standalone Linux-based single-board pc dubbed the Arduino UNO Q.

“Qualcomm has at all times been targeted on differentiation on the edge,” Nakul Duggal, Qualcomm’s group common supervisor for automotive, industrial, and embedded Web of Issues (IoT), claimed throughout a press briefing on the acquisition. “Over the past 12 months we have now made a lot of completely different acquisitions — the final one was Edge Impulse, which was a machine studying ops platform. Previous to that we acquired Foundries.io and immediately this dialog with Arduino and the Arduino ecosystem completes our technique to have the ability to scale [and] ship the perfect experiences to the developer group.”

Whereas the acquisition, monetary phrases of which haven’t been disclosed, will see Arduino grow to be a wholly-owned subsidiary of Qualcomm, each firms say that issues will enterprise as typical: Arduino will proceed to assist its current product strains no matter chip vendor, together with the recently-launched Arduino UNO R4 household with its Renesas microcontroller. “Arduino will proceed to function, assist all of its current partnerships, its current merchandise, and proceed to assist new merchandise because it ha been,” Duggal defined in response to our questions through the occasion. “Our focus goes to be on the SoC households hat we assist immediately, so nothing goes to alter so far as how the Arduino working mannequin continues.”

Qualcomm’s major affect, then, can be in offering Arduino with entry to its personal system-on-chip designs — however not, if the corporate is to be believed, forcing it to make use of them over rival distributors’ components. The primary fruit of this partnership: the Arduino UNO Q, a brand-new growth board in a well-recognized type issue — hiding the performance of a completely standalone Linux-capable single-board pc, one thing nearer to a Raspberry Pi than the sooner fashions within the Arduino UNO vary.

“It’s the most succesful Arduino UNO ever,” Marcello Majonchi, Arduino’s chief product officer, claimed of the brand new board through the occasion, “due to its hybrid ‘twin mind,’ we name it, structure, that’s combining a Qualcomm chip [and] STMicro[electronics] MCU [Microcontroller Unit]. It is Linux, the Debian working system, mixed with an Arduino core working on Zephyr [real-time operating system]. Extra importantly, with Arduino UNO Q we’re introducing Arduino App Lab, which is a brand-new built-in growth expertise that joins collectively growth throughout the microcontroller, the microprocessor, and the GPU [graphics processing unit], then is integrating the normal sketch growth of Arduino with programming instantly on the Linux subsystem with Python and integrates, additionally, AI fashions.”

On the {hardware} facet, the Arduino UNO Q packs plenty of energy into the traditional Arduino UNO footprint. Its foremost chip is the Qualcomm Dragonwing QRB2210, which incorporates 4 64-bit Arm Cortex-A53 cores working at as much as 2GHz, an Adreno graphics processor with 3D acceleration capabilities, and a picture sign processor (ISP) able to handing two 13 megapixel or one 25 megapixel video stream at 30 frames per second. There’s 2GB of LPDDR4 reminiscence and 16GB of eMMC storage with the Debian-based working system pre-loaded, with a 4GB/32GB variant deliberate for launch later within the 12 months. Each fashions embody dual-band Wi-Fi 5 and Bluetooth 5.1 connectivity.

The microcontroller facet of issues is dealt with by an STMicro STM32U585 microcontroller as a real-time coprocessor, that includes a single 32-bit Arm Cortex-M33 core working at as much as 160MHz, 768kB of static RAM (SRAM), and 2MB of flash reminiscence. It is this which is wired into the Arduino UNO-format pin headers on the highest of the board, whereas the Qualcomm chip handles a brand-new pair of high-density board-to-board connectors on the underside — which can, we’re informed, be appropriate with a variety of service boards, together with a show service, launching within the close to future.

Elsewhere on the board are 4 user-controllable RGB LEDs, an 8×13 blue LED matrix, a Qwiic-compatible 3.3VDC I2C enlargement connector, a user-addressable push-button swap, and a distant debug connector for the microprocessor facet of issues. There’s assist for USB cameras and video output through a USB Kind-C connector’s alternate perform mode; a JMEDIA header gives a pair of MIPI Digital camera Serial Interface (CSI) inputs and a single MIPI Show Serial Interface (DSI) output. Different interfaces embody audio out and in, I2C, I3C, SPI, CAN, UART, PSSI, and general-purpose enter/output (GPIO) pins with analog to digital conversion (ADC) and pulse-width modulation (PWM) assist.

All of that is designed to be accessed by way of the brand new Arduino App Lab, which takes over from the present Arduino IDE and gives an all-in-one growth atmosphere for dealing with each the microcontroller facet (in Wiring-flavored C) and the microprocessor facet (in Python). This, Majonchi defined, can be utilized in two modes: a standard tethered growth atmosphere wherein the Arduino UNO Q connects to a Microsoft Home windows, Apple macOS, or Linux host over USB; and a completely standalone mode, wherein a monitor, keyboard, and mouse is related to the Arduino UNO Q and the App Lab atmosphere runs instantly on the single-board pc itself — although for this customers will want an appropriate USB Kind-C docking station, a minimum of till Arduino will get round to releasing a service board with enough connectivity.

There is a third string to the App Lab bow, too: integration with Edge Impulse, one other recently-acquired Qualcomm subsidiary. “Arduino App Lab comes with already dozens of pre-loaded utility examples,” Majonchi informed us. “There are additionally a number of AI fashions which are pre-trained and already built-in [as] examples, but in addition accessible to make use of in {custom} purposes […] which are spanning throughout all completely different use circumstances from pc imaginative and prescient to sound, speech detection, to sign processing, with a view to allow any sort of use-cases from dwelling automation to industrial robotics. And these fashions are literally supplied by our associate Edge Impulse, and builders may custom-train their fashions with an energetic integration inside Edge Impulse.”

Maybe essentially the most welcome shock of the joint announcement is that the Arduino UNO Q will proceed the Arduino custom of open-source growth: the software program can be made accessible beneath both the reciprocal GNU Common Public License 3 or the Mozilla Public License, the businesses have confirmed, whereas schematics and {hardware} design information can be launched beneath a Inventive Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license that features the flexibility to launch clones and {custom} derivatives commercially — a win for Qualcomm, in fact, as it might provide the Dragonwing chips powering all these third-party takes on the design.

The Arduino UNO Q is now accessible to order in 2GB/16GB type from the Arduino Retailer and official resellers at $44, with transport starting on 25 October; the 4GB/32GB variant will open for orders in November at $59 with a view to transport “by finish of 12 months,” Arduino has promised.