Meet XIAO RA4M1, Powered by Renesas 32-Bit ARM® Cortex®-M4 RA4M1 Microcontroller
The XIAO RA4M1 maintains the beloved features of the Seeed Studio family: a thumb-sized form factor, all components surface-mounted with stamp holes on both sides, compatibility with Seeed Studio XIAO accessories, and open-source availability. It also boasts the Renesas’ RA4M1 32-bit ARM® Cortex®-M4 running at up to 48 MHz with FPU, along with ample memory and flash storage.
Since the release of the Arduino Uno R4 in March 2023, we’ve received many requests to incorporate the powerful Renesas RA4M1 microcontroller (MCU) into the popular Seeed Studio XIAO form factor. We’re excited to announce that it’s finally here with the new Seeed Studio XIAO RA4M1!
Seeed Studio XIAO RA4M1 is a groundbreaking addition to our XIAO lineup, expanding the possibilities with the powerful chipset Renesas RA4M1. The XIAO RA4M1 maintains the beloved features of the Seeed Studio family: a thumb-sized form factor, all components surface-mounted with stamp holes on both sides, compatibility with Seeed Studio XIAO accessories, and open-source availability. It also boasts a 32-bit ARM® Cortex®-M4 running at up to 48 MHz with FPU, along with ample memory and flash storage.
What’s New in the XIAO RA4M1?
As the latest member of the Seeed Studio XIAO family, the XIAO RA4M1 features the same processor as the iconic Arduino Uno R4.
The Renesas RA4M1 group of MCUs uses the high-performance Arm® Cortex®-M4 core and offers a segment LCD controller and a capacitive touch sensing unit input for intensive HMI designs. The RA4M1 MCU is built on a highly efficient low-power process and is supported by an open and flexible ecosystem concept—the Flexible Software Package (FSP), built on FreeRTOS—and is expandable to use other RTOSes and middleware. The RA4M1 is suitable for applications where a large amount of capacitive touch channels and a segment LCD controller are required.
"Seeed Studio has been pioneering open-source hardware solutions that empower developers worldwide. We're excited for this latest collaboration, embedding our powerful RA4M1 Arm Cortex®-M4 MCU into their signature XIAO Series Dev Boards. We look forward to seeing what new and exciting edge and TinyML applications the developer community creates with this tiny, thumb-sized board," says Brad Rex, Senior Director of System Solutions at Renesas.
XIAO RA4M1 Key Features
●Popular Microcontroller Onboard: Powered by the Renesas RA4M1, a 32-bit ARM® Cortex®-M4 MCU operating at up to 48 MHz with FPU, with 256 KB of Flash memory and 32 KB of SRAM.
●Highlighted Onboard Resources: Includes a 14-bit ADC, 12-bit DAC, CAN BUS, USB 2.0, and an onboard RGB LED.
●Expanded IOs: Adds 8 new IO pins on the back, totaling 19 GPIOs, enabling more complex applications.
●Efficient Power Design: Offers 4 operating modes with power consumption as low as 45μA in deep sleep, and supports lithium battery charge management.
●Software Compatibility: Fully compatible with Arduino IDE for seamless project development and prototyping.
●Hardware Compatibility: Thanks to the extensive XIAO ecosystem, the XIAO RA4M1 supports a wide range of add-ons, including displays, LED matrices, Grove modules, CAN Bus, Vision AI sensors, and mmWave sensors.
●Powerful Security Features: Built-in hardware encryption, secure boot, key storage, and more to ensure application security.
Join Our Early Adopter Program
To assist developers in adapting their projects to the XIAO RA4M1 quickly, we’re launching an early adopter program. If you’re an author or maintainer of a popular open-source Arduino project on GitHub, or an influencer on platforms like YouTube or Tiktok or Instagram, make sure your users can run your code on the XIAO RA4M1. Join to receive 2 free boards and technical support to make your code compatible with this exciting new board.
Notes at the end.
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Anybody know if this thing supports 2 way communication over the CAN BUS or is it read only like ELM chip?
I meant to ask if it could do 2 way over an OBD2 interface. I know CAN is a two way protocol so by definition it supports 2 way communication.
I know automotive OBD2 is different some how where most OBD2 readers either can’t talk back or can only do so in a very limited fashion.