Arduino Gives the Nano Family an UNO R4-Like Makeover, Launches the 32-Bit Arduino Nano R4

Arduino has announced a new board in its Arduino Nano range, which aims to deliver the same kind of performance boost as its most recent models in the Arduino UNO family: the Renesas RA4M1-powered Arduino Nano R4.

"Powered by the same RA4M1 microcontroller that’s at the core of the popular UNO R4 boards," the Arduino team says of its latest hardware design, "this tiny-yet-mighty module is here to help you take your projects from prototype to product, smoothly and efficiently. If you're already prototyping with UNO R4, Nano R4 is your perfect ally to move on to production with minimal adjustments!"

The Arduino Nano R4 is, as the name suggests, based around the gumstick-style Arduino Nano footprint. The usual eight-bit microcontroller, though, is gone, in favor of a considerably more powerful Renesas RA4M1 with a 32-bit Arm Cortex-M4 core running at 48MHz — the same chip that powered Arduino's relatively recent refresh of the larger Arduino UNO family, now available as the Arduino UNO R4 WiFi and Arduino UNO R4 Minima. The chip also includes 32kB of static RAM (SRAM) and 256kB of program flash.

Other new and enhanced features include a real-time clock (RTC) with optional battery backup, a user-programmable RGB LED, an extra 5V I2C port compatible with Arduino's Modulino node add-ons, a 3.3V I2C Qwiic connector, and a modern USB Type-C port for data and power. The breadboard-friendly 0.1" pin headers are also castellated for installation as a surface-mount component — and for those who need more connectivity there's the Nano Connector Carrier, which adds two Grove analog/digital, one I2C, and one UART connections, another Qwiic I2C connection, and an SD Card reader.

The Arduino Nano R4 is now available to order on the Arduino Store, priced at $12.10 without or $13.30 with headers pre-installed; the Nano Connector Carrier is an additional $11.80, if required.