Page 32 - EE Times Europe Magazine | March 2020

32 EE|Times EUROPE

OPEN SOURCE
Arduino’s Violante on Open-Source

Hardware in the IoT Era

By Maurizio Di Paolo Emilio

rduino is an open-source electronics platform based on a simplified hardware and soft-
ware management system. Probably the best known Italian brand in the digital world, Fabio Violante
A Arduino has become an icon for its pioneering open-source boards.
With Arduino, it is possible, in an extremely fast way, to develop devices that integrate not only classic electronic com-
ponents but also sensors, servomechanisms, and communication devices. Arduino breaks down the barriers to entry that
the world of electronics experienced with information technology and opens up a universe of possibilities to the legions
of modern makers who like to experiment and prototype electronic devices at low cost.
Arduino Uno arrived in 2005 and has since become a pillar of the maker movement. But the world has changed dramat-
ically since then. EE Times Europe spoke with Arduino CEO Fabio Violante about the evolution of open-source hardware
in the age of “industrial makers” and the internet of things.

EE TIMES EUROPE: I grew up with the main applications? What could be bottom of the module), we aim to open up a
Arduino. I saw it come to life and grow the design challenges? big opportunity for partners, design firms, and
up — grow up a lot. I saw the emergence Violante: Very often, industrial makers the ecosystem to develop a number of vertical
of startups with Arduino as the basic require industrial-grade components. Quality, applications using our modules as the “brain”
element of their prototypes. And now, it product longevity, and industrial tempera- in their devices. More computing power on
has a huge community, potentially the ture range are paramount. We designed the the edge means more sophisticated applica-
largest. What’s Arduino trying to get to? Portenta family to meet these criteria. With tions, including signal processing, machine
Fabio Violante: It’s always great to hear the help of selected partners like STMicro- learning for predictive maintenance, and
that people grew up with Arduino, and we’re electronics for the Portenta H7, we were able simple vision tasks.
pleased to see our products continue to be to create not only a reliable product but also
widely used as a prototyping platform for the most powerful dual-core-microcontroller– EETE: We have many MCU-based
startups going on to be successful companies based module with low power consumption boards. FPGA-based Arduino could be
in their own right. Arduino now has over 30 on the market. a new way with the MKR Vidor 4000. Is
million active community members, many of Furthermore, by standardizing on two there a particular reason to choose a
whom are looking for the simplicity that made high-density connectors (located at the microcontroller instead of an FPGA as
Arduino so popular in the hardware the core of the board?
market to be carried over into IoT Violante: Historically, Arduino has
applications — basically, to simplify been built around microcontrollers
the process for designing connected — we live and breathe them — but
devices in the IoT. as you pointed out, FPGAs are very
Therefore, we are focusing a lot of promising technology that probably
effort on the Arduino IoT Cloud to never became mainstream in our
facilitate low-code application devel- community due to complexity in both
opment — i.e., in true Arduino style, development and assembly.
make it quick and easy for users to Our aim with the Vidor was
seamlessly develop their applications. The MKR Vidor 4000 twofold: Build a multicore accessible
For example, we recently announced (Image: Arduino) board on which the FPGA can be seen
improved support for LoRaWan on as an “infinitely flexible peripheral,”
our cloud. This is a quantum leap and, more importantly, build a tool to
compared with existing solutions, simplify the usage of FPGAs by less
where most of the work to transform sophisticated engineers and makers.
sensor data into packets is performed The development of the tool,
manually by developers. unfortunately, took longer than
planned, with multiple prototyping
EETE: The latest Arduino Portenta iterations required to get the usabil-
aims to give Arduino a bigger ity right. We are confident we’ve
push into the industrial market. nearly solved the usability challenge
The so-called industrial makers and will release the tool later this
are being born. What advantages year, initially as a beta to be followed
is this board going to offer the Portenta by general availability when our users
industrial market, and what are (Image: Arduino) confirm if we’ve “cracked it.”

MARCH 2020 | www.eetimes.eu