The history of the Due

Official Hardware Mega Due
1

Does anyone have any inside information on the origins of the Due?

All I know is that it was created and manufactured by Arduino SRL. After the end of the legal dispute with Arduino LLC the Due disappeared from the store for a year or two then eventually reappeared, and is still being sold today.

Given the age of the Due, I assumed that eventually it would be replaced by some other high pin count board, but nothing arrived as Arduino LLC focused on creating low pin count devices.

So, was the SAM3X the end of the road. so to speak, with no obvious next step in the evolutionary path?

2

It's long awaiting update, but looks like it won't happen. They can use SAMD51, but after investment from Renesas, expect a microcontroller from them.

3

Interesting topic. I would be interested in why has Due been so neglected?

4

It looks like the Giga is the next step.

5

not really.

6

@phr3ak

If you don't agree with my statement, I'm curious to the "why" :wink:

7

It has not been available since March and I don't think anyone is interested in it at this price.

8

Fair enough.

I'm definitely not :+1:

9

Hi @mikb55

I think Adafruit took up that baton with their SAMD51 based Metro M4 Grand Central.

I imagine that the issue for the Due when it was released, was that despite hardware-wise out performing the Mega in every department, it was the Mega that was logical progression for beginners from the Uno (R3). The Mega's greater code compatibility with the Uno allowed it to also take advantage of the huge amount of on-line support and libraries, essentially eclipsing the Due in that regard.

There has since been a proliferation of smaller, cheaper, more powerful and wireless based Arduino compatible microcontrollers and boards (ARM and Espressif's ESP32). This means that the Mega is no longer the logical progression that it once was and has resulted in the popularity of larger boards in general, to no doubt decline.

I really like the Arduino Due though, it's an excellent board with loads of features.

10

What kind of cheaper ARM based wireless board are you referring to?

11

Hi @phr3ak

None, I was talking about microcontrollers in general.

Saying that there is the Arduino Nano BLE that uses the nRF52840 from Nordic Semiconductor. An ARM Cortex M4 based core with Bluetooth and BLE.

12

Chipageddon strikes again. Adafriut wrote the following just a few weeks ago.
"We're slowly but surely trying to de-SAMD51'ify our product line since that chip has a 2024 ETA. a bummer because we really loved that chip but it's probably a good time to transition since it can be a year until we get some and even then, the dates have been pushed multiple times."

So it seems at the moment the development of new boards is dictated by chip availability rather than feature set.

13

It's a shame. The smaller SAMD51 chips seem to have returned to availability, but not the big chip used by the Grand Central.

I don't remember the Due coming from Arduino SRL - they had a number of "advanced" ARM boards (Primo, etc) (Some of these never shipped more than prototypes, AFAIK), but I thought the Due preceded the nastiness? Alhough, pre-nastiness, I think some of the Arduino boards (particularly the YÚN) were being designed by the people who ended up on the SRL side, so it all might be a bit ambiguous.