New 32-bit Arduino Uno R4

Announcement

For the first time since 2010 when the Arduino Uno R3 made its debut we have an announcement about another addition to the venerable Arduino Uno family of microcontrollers!

The new Arduino UNO R4s will come in two varieties the – UNO R4 WiFi and UNO R4 Minima –

The UNO R4 is powered by the Renesas RA4M1 32-bit Cortex®-M4 processor, The WiFi version comes with an Espressif S3 WiFi module in addition to the RA4M1 32-bit Cortex processor.

Compatibility

Both boards have been Designed to provide backwards compatibility with most of the shields, libraries, modules, and accessories produced for the previous boards in this family. The UNO R4 maintains the same form factor, shield compatibility, and 5V operating voltage as its predecessor.

Software compatibility is also a top priority, with most existing libraries and examples working seamlessly on the new board right out of the gate.

What’s new?

• The Arduino UNO R4, featuring the Renesas RA4M1 (Arm Cortex®-M4) running at 48MHz, boasts a 3x performance increase over the UNO R3.
• Additionally, SRAM has been upgraded from 2kB to 32kB, and flash memory from 32kB to 256kB to support more complex projects.
• Responding to community feedback, the USB port is now USB-C, and the maximum power supply voltage has been raised to 24V with an enhanced thermal design.
• The board includes a CAN bus and an SPI port, enabling users to reduce wiring and perform parallel tasks by connecting multiple shields.
• The board includes a CAN bus and an SPI port, enabling users to reduce wiring and perform parallel tasks by connecting multiple shields.
• A 12-bit analog DAC is also provided on the new board.

Enter the early access program!

You may qualify to enter the early access program if:

• If you are 18+ years old, and belong to one of the following categories:
  •  authors or maintainers of an open source library for Arduino published as of March 2023
  • authors or maintainers of an open-source project based on an AVR Arduino board such as Arduino UNO R3, Arduino MEGA, Arduino Leonardo or Arduino Nano
• You can apply to enter the early access program

Release Date

The Arduino UNO R4 will be available in late May, 2023.

Related

We don’t make much use of the Arduino Uno R3 around here but we do make up for it with our use of the Arduino Leonardo and Pro Micro boards. You can make a rudimentary video game controller with either of them alternatively you can familiarize yourself with the Video Game Library 2.0 that makes all of this a breeze here.