Netduino was an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on the .NET Micro Framework. It uses the ARM Cortex-M 32-bit RISC ARM processor core as a 32-bit ARM-microcontroller. The Netduino boards (except the discontinued Mini and Go models) are designed to be pin-compatible with most Arduino shields. [1] Applications can be built on Windows (with Visual Studio), or on Mac OS (with Xamarin Studio). The platform is similar in concept to the Arduino platform, but is generally more powerful and instead of writing applications in C/C++ or Wiring (essentially, C++ without header files), applications are written in C#, which brings powerful, high-level language constructs to the toolbox such as threading, event handling, automatic garbage collection, and more.
Netduino was invented by Chris Walker, founder of Secret Labs. [2]
The platform was actively supported by Wilderness Labs and had an active open source community. [3] [4] Some time in 2020 Wilderness Labs discontinued Netduino and completely superseded it by Meadow, an STM32F7-based microcontroller board with .NET Standard. [5]
The Netduino family is based on the Cortex-M Micro Processor running the .NET Micro Framework (NETMF) v4.3. [6] Development can be done on both Windows, with Visual Studio, or with Xamarin Studio on Mac OS X. IO includes 22 General Purpose Input/Output (GPIO) ports, 6 of which support hardware Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) generation, 4 UARTs (serial communication), I2C, and SPI (Serial Peripheral Interface Bus). [7]
The Netduino family consists of the Netduino 3, Netduino 2, and the original Netduino 1 lines. The original Netduino (1st generation) and Netduino Mini (also 1st generation), have been replaced by the much more powerful Netduino 2 and 3 lines.
The Netduino 3 is based on a Cortex-M4 microcontroller running at 168 MHz with 384 KB of flash storage and 164 KB of RAM.
Netduino 3 is offered in 3 different models, the N3 base model, N3 Ethernet model, and the N3 WiFi model; which vary by their internet connectivity mode and their code/flash storage size. All N3 models support persistent storage with SD cards up to 2GB. Both the Ethernet and WiFi models have a Micro SD slot built in to the board. The base model can use SD cards via most Arduino SD Card add-on shields.
The N3 technical specifications are as follows:
Model | MCU | Flash | RAM | Network |
---|---|---|---|---|
N3 | Cortex-M4 @ 168 MHz | 384 Kb | 164+ Kb | N/A |
N3 Ethernet | Cortex-M4 @ 168 MHz | 1408 Kb | 164+ Kb | 10/100 Mbs Ethernet |
N3 WiFi | Cortex-M4 @ 168 MHz | 1408 Kb | 164+ Kb | 802.11b/g/n with SSL/TLS 1.2 Support |
Netduino 2 is offered in 2 different models, the N2 base model as well as the N2+, which adds 10Mb Ethernet.
Model | MCU | Flash | RAM | Network |
---|---|---|---|---|
N2 | Cortex-M3 @ 120 MHz | 192 Kb | 60 Kb | N/A |
N2+ | Cortex-M4 @ 168 MHz | 384 Kb | 100+ Kb | 10 Mbs Ethernet |
The original Netduino forum is archived and contains historical and technical information about the original Netduino boards and development. [8]
The original Netduino was based on an Atmel AT91SAM7X processor running at 48 MHz.
The Netduino Plus added an onboard Ethernet port and a microSD card reader. [9]
The Netduino mini was a smaller breadboard mountable Netduino in a DIP package. [9]
With Netduino Go, all the peripherals were virtualized, with 8 gobus ports replacing the Arduino headers. Additional modules could be added through these ports, and each module had a small microchip which works together with the mainboard. [10]
AVR is a family of microcontrollers developed since 1996 by Atmel, acquired by Microchip Technology in 2016. These are modified Harvard architecture 8-bit RISC single-chip microcontrollers. AVR was one of the first microcontroller families to use on-chip flash memory for program storage, as opposed to one-time programmable ROM, EPROM, or EEPROM used by other microcontrollers at the time.
Atmel ARM-based processors are microcontrollers and microprocessors integrated circuits, by Microchip Technology, that are based on various 32-bit ARM processor cores, with in-house designed peripherals and tool support.
Arduino is an Italian open-source hardware and software company, project, and user community that designs and manufactures single-board microcontrollers and microcontroller kits for building digital devices. Its hardware products are licensed under a CC BY-SA license, while the software is licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) or the GNU General Public License (GPL), permitting the manufacture of Arduino boards and software distribution by anyone. Arduino boards are available commercially from the official website or through authorized distributors.
The .NET Micro Framework (NETMF) is a .NET Framework platform for resource-constrained devices with at least 512 kB of flash and 256 kB of random-access memory (RAM). It includes a small version of the .NET Common Language Runtime (CLR) and supports development in C#, Visual Basic .NET, and debugging using Microsoft Visual Studio. NETMF features a subset of the .NET base class libraries, an implementation of Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), a GUI framework loosely based on Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), and a Web Services stack based on Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) and Web Services Description Language (WSDL). NETMF also features added libraries specific to embedded applications. It is free and open-source software released under Apache License 2.0.
The i.MX range is a family of Freescale Semiconductor proprietary microcontrollers for multimedia applications based on the ARM architecture and focused on low-power consumption. The i.MX application processors are SoCs (System-on-Chip) that integrate many processing units into one die, like the main CPU, a video processing unit, and a graphics processing unit for instance. The i.MX products are qualified for automotive, industrial, and consumer markets. Most of them are guaranteed for a production lifetime of 10 to 15 years.
Devices that use i.MX processors include Ford Sync, the Amazon Kindle and Kobo eReader series of e-readers until 2021, Zune, Sony Reader, Onyx Boox readers/tablets, SolidRun SOM's, Purism's Librem 5, some Logitech Harmony remote controls and Squeezebox radio and some Toshiba Gigabeat MP4 players. The i.MX range was previously known as the "DragonBall MX" family, the fifth generation of DragonBall microcontrollers. i.MX originally stood for "innovative Multimedia eXtension".
The BeagleBoard is a low-power open-source single-board computer produced by Texas Instruments in association with Digi-Key and Newark element14. The BeagleBoard was also designed with open source software development in mind, and as a way of demonstrating the Texas Instrument's OMAP3530 system-on-a-chip. The board was developed by a small team of engineers as an educational board that could be used in colleges around the world to teach open source hardware and software capabilities. It is also sold to the public under the Creative Commons share-alike license. The board was designed using Cadence OrCAD for schematics and Cadence Allegro for PCB manufacturing; no simulation software was used.
EFM32 Gecko MCUs are a family of mixed-signal 32-bit microcontroller integrated circuits from Energy Micro based on ARM Cortex-M CPUs, including the Cortex-M0+, Cortex-M3 and Cortex-M4.
Raspberry Pi is a series of small single-board computers (SBCs) developed in the United Kingdom by the Raspberry Pi Foundation in association with Broadcom. Since 2013, Raspberry Pi devices have been developed and supported by a subsidiary of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, now named Raspberry Pi Ltd. The Raspberry Pi project originally leaned toward the promotion of teaching basic computer science in schools. The original model became more popular than anticipated, selling outside its target market for diverse uses such as robotics, home and industrial automation, and by computer and electronic hobbyists, because of its low cost, modularity, open design, and its adoption of the HDMI and USB standards.
STM32 is a family of 32-bit microcontroller integrated circuits by STMicroelectronics. The STM32 chips are grouped into related series that are based around the same 32-bit ARM processor core: Cortex-M0, Cortex-M0+, Cortex-M3, Cortex-M4, Cortex-M7, Cortex-M33. Internally, each microcontroller consists of ARM processor core(s), flash memory, static RAM, debugging interface, and various peripherals.
XMC is a family of microcontroller ICs by Infineon. The XMC microcontrollers use the 32-bit RISC ARM processor cores from ARM Holdings, such as Cortex-M4F and Cortex-M0. XMC stands for "cross-market microcontrollers", meaning that this family can cover due to compatibility and configuration options, a wide range in industrial applications. The family supports three essential trends in the industry: It increases the energy efficiency of the systems, supports a variety of communication standards and reduces software complexity in the development of the application's software environment with the parallel released eclipse-based software tool DAVE.
Cubieboard is a single-board computer, made in Zhuhai, Guangdong, China. The first short run of prototype boards were sold internationally in September 2012, and the production version started to be sold in October 2012. It can run Android 4 ICS, Ubuntu 12.04 desktop, Fedora 19 ARM Remix desktop, Armbian, Arch Linux ARM, a Debian-based Cubian distribution, FreeBSD, or OpenBSD.
The ATmega328 is a single-chip microcontroller created by Atmel in the megaAVR family. It has a modified Harvard architecture 8-bit RISC processor core.
Intel Galileo is the first in a line of Arduino-certified development boards based on Intel x86 architecture and is designed for the maker and education communities. Intel released two versions of Galileo, referred to as Gen 1 and Gen 2. These development boards are sometimes called "Breakout boards".
The Arduino Uno is an open-source microcontroller board based on the Microchip ATmega328P microcontroller (MCU) and developed by Arduino.cc and initially released in 2010. The microcontroller board is equipped with sets of digital and analog input/output (I/O) pins that may be interfaced to various expansion boards (shields) and other circuits. The board has 14 digital I/O pins, 6 analog I/O pins, and is programmable with the Arduino IDE, via a type B USB cable. It can be powered by a USB cable or a barrel connector that accepts voltages between 7 and 20 volts, such as a rectangular 9-volt battery. It has the same microcontroller as the Arduino Nano board, and the same headers as the Leonardo board. The hardware reference design is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 2.5 license and is available on the Arduino website. Layout and production files for some versions of the hardware are also available.
The MSP432 is a mixed-signal microcontroller family from Texas Instruments. It is based on a 32-bit ARM Cortex-M4F CPU, and extends their 16-bit MSP430 line, with a larger address space for code and data, and faster integer and floating point calculation than the MSP430. Like the MSP430, it has a number of built-in peripheral devices, and is designed for low power requirements. In 2021, TI confirmed that the MSP432 has been discontinued and "there will be no new MSP432 products".
The Arduino Nano is an open-source breadboard-friendly microcontroller board based on the Microchip ATmega328P microcontroller (MCU) and developed by Arduino.cc and initially released in 2008. It offers the same connectivity and specs of the Arduino Uno board in a smaller form factor.
Apache Mynewt is a modular real-time operating system for connected Internet of things (IoT) devices that must operate for long times under power, memory, and storage constraints. It is free and open-source software incubating under the Apache Software Foundation, with source code distributed under the Apache License 2.0, a permissive license that is conducive to commercial adoption of open-source software.
ESP32 is a series of low-cost, low-power system on a chip microcontrollers with integrated Wi-Fi and dual-mode Bluetooth. The ESP32 series employs either a Tensilica Xtensa LX6 microprocessor in both dual-core and single-core variations, Xtensa LX7 dual-core microprocessor or a single-core RISC-V microprocessor and includes built-in antenna switches, RF balun, power amplifier, low-noise receive amplifier, filters, and power-management modules. ESP32 is created and developed by Espressif Systems, a Chinese company based in Shanghai, and is manufactured by TSMC using their 40 nm process. It is a successor to the ESP8266 microcontroller.
RP2040 is a 32-bit dual ARM Cortex-M0+ microcontroller integrated circuit by Raspberry Pi Ltd. In January 2021, it was released as part of the Raspberry Pi Pico board.