Seeed Studio has a new addition to its popular XIAO series of development boards. The new board is called the XIAO RA4M1 and is powered by the Renesas RA4M1 32-bit chip, the same chip that powers the new Arduino UNO R4. It is natively compatible with the Arduino IDE which helps in quick development due to the vast collection of Arduino libraries.
Due to its small form factor, the XIAO RA4M1 only supports 256KB of flash memory integrated within the RA4M1 chip. Although not the best in its segment, the flash memory should be enough for basic projects (The original Arduino UNO features only 32KB Flash). Apart from the flash memory to store programs, 8KB of EEPROM acts as helpful non-volatile memory to store data which remains unaffected by power cycles.
Also read: Save Data to Raspberry Pi Pico Flash Permanently Using MicroPython.
Key Features of XIAO RA4M1:
- Powered by the Renesas RA4M1, an 32-bit ARM® Cortex®-M4 R7FA4M1AB3CFM MCU
- Operating frequency up to 48 MHz
- 256 KB Flash memory
- 32 KB SRAM
- 14-bit ADC
- 12-bit DAC
- 19 GPIOs
- Security:
- Built-in hardware encryption
- Secure boot
- Key storage
- Dimensions: 21mm x 17.8mm
- 1 User LED, 1 Power LED, 1 RGB LED
- USB Type-C
The XIAO RA4M1 board includes 1 RESET Button and 1 BOOT Button. In case a program functions erratically, you can press the RESET button once during power-up to make the XIAO rerun the uploaded program. To enter the Bootloader mode, press and hold the BOOT key while powering up and then press the RESET key once.
The board supports 4 operating modes in terms of power consumption, with the deep sleep mode consuming as little as 45μA. Lithium battery charge management is also present onboard, which will help to make portable projects without the hassle of additional shields for battery backup.
The XIAO RA4M1 has 14 castellated mounting pins, 7 on each side. The castellated pins include:
- Power (5V, 3.3V) and Ground pins
- 11 Digital pins
- 6 Analog pins
- 5 ADC pins
- I2C pins
- SPI pins
- UART pins
Configurable by code, many of these pins are multifunctional. Apart from these castellated pinouts, the dev board also has solder pads on the bottom side that can function as:
- 3 ADC pins
- 8 digital pins
- UART pins
- SPI pins
The getting started guide on Seeed Studio goes into detail on how we can use Arduino code to blink the onboard LED on the XIAO RA4M1. The board is available for preorder on its official site for USD 4.99.
Also read: Arduino vs MicroPython vs CircuitPython: Which One Will You Choose?
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