Arduino enthusiasts that are looking for a smaller Arduino Zero board for their next project may be interested in a new piece of hardware called the TAU that has been developed by Rabid Prototypes and which has been equipped with an Atmel ATSAMD21E17A ARM Cortex M0+ micro controller and offers 16KB RAM.
The TAU has been created to provide an affordable open source miniature version of the large Arduino Zero and offers 32-bit ARM processor running at 48MHz and can be easily programmed using the Arduino IDE.
Featuring a 32-bit ARM processor running at 48MHz, and boasting 16K of ram, the Tau is far more powerful than your standard Arduino. Like most Arduinos, the Tau features a few LEDs. A green LED lets you know that the Tau is receiving power, while a red LED is connected to pin 26 aka PIN_LED_TXL. This LED can be used as a status indicator. While I could have connected the red LED to pin 13, which is the usual pin for a status LED on an Arduino, connecting it to pin 26 avoided the need to isolate it from the SPI bus with a mosfet, and left room for the power LED!
Specification of the TAU include :
– Microcontroller: Atmel ATSAMD21E17A ARM Cortex M0+
– Clock speed: 48 MHz
– Operating voltage: 3.3V
– I/O pin limits: 3.3V, 7 mA
– Digital I/O pins: 12 w/ 10 PWM channels + 2 dedicated I2C pins w/ pullups
– Analog inputs: 3 12-bit ADC channels
– Analog outputs: 1 10-bit DAC
– Flash (program) memory: 128 KB
– RAM: 16 KB
– Voltage regulator: TLV702, 3.7V – 5.5V input / 3.3V, 300mA output
– Dimensions: 1.1 x 0.6″ (28mm x 15mm)
For more information on the new TAU jump over to the Kickstarter website for details via the link below and to make a pledge from just $10. If you liked this you might also be interested in building an Arduino wind speed meter.
Source: Kickstarter
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