{"id":7425,"date":"2020-12-01T10:13:09","date_gmt":"2020-12-01T15:13:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dronebotworkshop.com\/?p=7425"},"modified":"2023-04-12T10:13:19","modified_gmt":"2023-04-12T14:13:19","slug":"seeeduino-xiao-intro","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dronebotworkshop.com\/seeeduino-xiao-intro\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet the Seeeduino XIAO"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Download \"Parts<\/a> \"View<\/a> \"Download<\/a><\/p>\n

Meet the Seeeduino XIAO<\/h1>\n

Today we will take a look at the Seeeduino XIAO<\/a>, a tiny microcontroller with impressive capabilities.<\/p>\n

Introduction<\/h2>\n

When you need a microcontroller to bring your latest invention to life the first impulse is usually to grab an Arduino board, probably an Arduino Uno. It makes sense, the Arduino Uno is easy to work with, and the Arduino IDE is a familiar programming environment with a wealth of libraries and sample code that simplify development.<\/p>\n

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But for all of its advantages, the Arduino Uno is a pretty old piece of technology, dating back to around 2005. And it has limitations (such as speed or analog input resolution) that make it a poor choice for some designs.<\/p>\n

So for more advanced projects or better-performing versions of existing designs, we can look at some other, more modern microcontroller boards.<\/p>\n

\"Seeeduino<\/p>\n

We have already done that with the ESP32 boards, they are much more powerful than the ATMEGA328-based Arduino boards and have a wealth of additional features. And there are other selections as well, Arduino themselves have a range of more powerful microcontroller boards based upon 32-bit processors instead of the old 8-bit designs like the Uno.<\/p>\n

The board we are looking at today is a very tiny and very inexpensive offering from Seeedstudio. Called the Seeeduino XIAO (pronounced \u201csh-ow\u201d) it is a 32-bit Arduino-compatible module that can be used to update and improve your Arduino designs.<\/p>\n

Incidentally, if you are wondering about the origins of the word XIAO<\/a>, it is a type of Chinese flute that has been around for centuries.<\/p>\n

Seeeduino XIAO<\/h2>\n

The Seeeduino line of microcontrollers from Seeedstudio<\/a> are Arduino-compatible boards, kits, and peripherals. Many of them include \u201cGrove\u201d connectors, an interface standard used by Seeedstudio and some other manufacturers to simplify interfacing microcontrollers with external sensors and displays.<\/p>\n

The Seeeduino XIAO is the latest entry (as of this writing) to this group of boards, and it’s also the smallest. In fact, it\u2019s probably about the smallest Arduino-compatible board you\u2019ve ever seen, with the exception perhaps of a few ATtiny85-based offerings. In performance, this thing is light years ahead of the ATtiny85.<\/p>\n

\"Seeeduino<\/p>\n

The XIAO is available individually or in 3-packs, and it\u2019s a quality build. The boards are packaged with some male header pins which you can solder in if you wish to use them, or you can just wire to the pins directly. The only connector on the board is a USB-C jack.<\/p>\n

To understand the Seeeduino XIAO you really need to understand the microcontroller chip that powers it, the SAMD21. So let\u2019s take a look at that before we hook up our XIAO.<\/p>\n

SAMD21 MIcrocontroller<\/h3>\n

The heart of the tiny Seeeduino XIAO is the Atmel ATSAMD21 Cortex M0+ 32-bit microcontroller<\/a> from Microchip. This tiny wonder has been around since 2012 and it has the following specifications:<\/p>\n