Time is a critical factor in the development of new products. Consumers usually don't care about how professional the design and the platform are, and they want to use them without issues.
Consequently, in the development of hardware electronics, using a low-code application development platform with modular hardware makes tangible prototypes both in-time of development and robustness. This means that companies can build, measure, and iterate without expensive consultants or lengthy integration projects. The Portenta H7 module was firstly released at the CES2020. Like the MKR family, it presented as a standard Arduino platform to achieve massive computing resources, robustness, and industrial compatibility.
Traditionally, Arduino uses the AVR family architecture as the baseline of products. There were several efforts to use new platforms like ESP Family, Arduino STM32, and STM32duino, but most of them are not officially supported by Arduino. Still, the latest Arduino solutions simplify integration and provide a scalable, secure, and professionally helped service.
"By combining the power and flexibility of our production-ready IoT hardware with our secure, scalable, and easy to integrate cloud services, we are putting in the hands of our customers something disruptive, " commented Arduino CEO Fabio Violante
The original Arduino Integrated Development Environment (IDE) that was introduced a decade ago is the crucial factor of Arduino production. It provides simplicity in codding. A new side of the IDE was presented and known as the Arduino Pro Development Environment for the new generation family.
The new Portenta Module includes several peripherals, and the H7 production batch has all the peripherals at a fully functional level and high price. For flexibility in cost and consumers' needs, Protenta H7 Lite and H7 Lite Connected are available in the market.
All Portenta module includes A high-performance family microcontroller from ST (an STM32H747) with a dual-core Arm Cortex-M7 and a Cortex-M4 on-chip running at 480MHz and 240MHz, respectively. Designed and rated for industrial applications, it can operate in temperatures between -40° and 85°C.
One of the most significant disadvantages of traditional Arduino family products is coding.
The majority of the products support C and C++. However, other products support a new generation of Python known as Micropython, and some others run on Javascript. As a result, there is a considerable coding gap between Arduino and other products. Portenta, in contrast to most Arduino products, supports coding languages such as Micropython and Javascript, making it much more accessible to a broader range of developers who have grown up with those languages rather than C.
All the Portenta boards are designed in a modular structure. To use all the peripherals and expand functionality, one must use extension modules or development kits. The disadvantage of Portenta design is in using all the hardware potential without any extra cost. At the minimum, only 25 GPIO from 80 are available because of MKR design standard compatibility for all Portenta families in the production line.
As mentioned, the MKR standard isn't sufficient to release all the potential of all pinouts, and the main Portenta board has two high-density connectors at the bottom that provides 80 pins for more developments.
An official development kit is available from Arduino, known as Arduino Portenta Breakout. This development includes several parts such as complete GPIOs expansion, Ethernet, USB, and micro SD card reader. In fact, to have the full functionality of the Portenta family, this breakout board is necessary.
Comments