Meet the New Arduino Giga R1 WiFi

2023-03-01 | By Nate_Larson

Since its launch in late 2010, the Arduino Mega2560 has been the go-to Arduino board for projects requiring multiple IO. Over the years, Arduino has released only a couple of other boards leveraging this form factor and with similar pin count; the now discontinued Arduino Mega ADK and the Arduino Due. However, Arduino has now released a new board that eclipses the 54 GPIO of these boards with a whopping 75 GPIO while maintaining compatibility with the well-established Mega footprint.

Meet the new Arduino Giga R1 WiFi! This board features STMicro’s STM32H7 microcontroller, a dual-core behemoth sporting a Cortex® M7 core operating at 480 MHz and a Cortex® M4 core running at 240 MHz! Compared to the 16MHz of the Mega boards or even the 84MHz of the Due, you’ll find this new board has enough horsepower for the most complex tasks.

Connectivity is paramount, with these 75 GPIO providing 12 analog pins, 13 PWM pins, 4 serial ports, 3 I2C busses, 2 SPI busses, 1 FDCAN (flexible data-rate CAN) bus, and 1 SAI (serial audio interface). Additionally, this new Arduino board features onboard 802.11B/G/N WiFi and Bluetooth Low Energy via a Murata 1DX module. While the board has no onboard antenna, Arduino does include an external u.fl antenna in the box. One item of note is the Giga R1 WiFi supports 3.3V logic as opposed to the 5V logic of the previous boards.

You’ll find that while the Arduino Giga supports the Mega footprint and many expansion boards, it features additional low-profile 10x2 and 12x2 female headers for access to the additional GPIO. Also onboard, there is a JTAG header, a USB-A port that supports USB host mode, a 3.5mm TRRS audio jack that supports stereo audio out and mic input, a USB-C port for programming and power, and a separate pin to provide power to the internal RTC independent of the rest of the board.

Meet the New Arduino Giga R1 WiFi

Not only is the Giga Arduino IDE compatible, but the board supports MicroPython and has an Arducam-compatible header, making it easier to build computer vision and TinyML projects. The board supports voltage input of up to 24VDC, doubling the 12V max rating of the Mega, making the Giga better suited to 3D printers and similar applications.

Meet the New Arduino Giga R1 WiFi

Overall, the Arduino Giga R1 WiFi provides useful and powerful upgrades over previous boards while maintaining compatibility with the well-established Mega footprint. This board is perfect for advanced projects or anyone just looking to step up their game with an Arduino powerhouse. Order your Arduino Giga R1 WiFi today and share your projects with us here on Maker.io, or via our social media channels.

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