Arduino Tre vs. Raspberry Pi Model B – 5 major differences ~ ELECTRONICS LAB

Arduino Tre vs. Raspberry Pi Model B – 5 major differences

Comparing the Arduino Tre with the Raspberry Pi is the subject of this article, and we have to specify that the comparison is based on the preliminary specifications of the Arduino Tre. In the following, you can discover up to five major differences between the Tre and Pi.

The most important difference between Tre and Pi are:

Arduino Tre has three microcontrollers dedicated for real-time applications;
one USB 2.0 device port and 4 USB 2.0 host ports are available for Tre board, while the Pi has two USB 2.0 host ports;
Tre has an on-board LCD expansion interface, while the Pi requires an expansion shield for LCD screens;
the processor of the Tre has a clock speed of 1 GHz, while the Pi processor has a clock speed of 700 MHz;
both electronic boards support different programming languages;

Arduino Tre vs. Raspberry Pi Model B

	Arduino Tre	Raspberry Pi Model B
Processor	1 GHz – Texas Instrument Sitara AM3359AZCZ100 (ARM Cortex-A8)	700 MHz – ARM1176JZ-F Applications Processor
Microcontroller	3x PRU 32-bit microcontrollers	–
Memory	512MB DDR3L	512MB SDRAM
Digital I/O Pins	14(5V logic) + 12 (3.3V logic)	26-pin from which 8 GPIO (3.3V logic)
Networking	Ethernet 10/100	Ethernet 10/100
USB ports	1 USB 2.0 device port, 4 USB 2.0 host ports	2 USB 2.0 host ports
Video Output	HDMI (1920×1080)	HDMI (1920×1200)
Audio Output	HDMI	HDMI
MicroSD card	Yes	Yes
Software	Linux	Linux
Programming languages	C, C++	Python, Java
Android support	?	Yes
Power	5V	5V
Dimensions	?	85.60mm x 56mm x 21mm

What is an Arduino Tre?

Arduino is above of all a community of engineers, hobbyists, or students around open source hardware platforms that comes in different versions. The first board was released in 2005 aiming to simplify the process of prototyping DIY electronic devices. Since then, few Arduino boards were released with significant improvements, but the biggest improvement for an Arduino board will be in 2014 when the Arduino Tre is planned to be released.
Arduino Tre will be the most powerful Arduino board, a mini computer with realistic features to run a full version of Linux. The Tre will be the first electronic Arduino board manufactured in the U.S., and the main reason is that the electronic device is the result of collaboration with BeagleBoard.org foundation.
The Arduino Tre is designed to encapsulate the experience and benefits of both Arduino and BeagleBoard communities, and this makes the technology more accessible to engineers, designers, students, or hobbyists.
Integrating a processor with 100 times more performance than any other Arduino boards, the Arduino Tre is able to run desktop applications, complex algorithms or to maintain high-speed communications.

What is a Raspberry Pi?

The Raspberry Pi was sold over time in more than 2 million exemplars, a remarkable number for a tiny electronic board with high performances and a price of about US $35.
This minicomputer is a powerful and inexpensive device for engineers, designers, students, or hobbyists involved in DIY projects or try to learn programming and building wonderful robotic applications.
Like Arduino boards, the Raspberry Pi was designed to be used especially in education, and also is a platform based on Linux and opened to write your own software to run on it.
The device comes in two models called A and B. Between the two models are small differences including here 512MB RAM for model B instead 256MB RAM of model A, 2 USB ports for model B instead only one USB port for model A, and no Ethernet connectivity for model A.
As a conclusion, the Raspberry Pi is a cheap, flexible and opened for experimentation minicomputer that can be useful for a large area of DIY projects.

Measures

The dimensions of the Arduino Tre are not listed, while the Raspberry Pi Model B measures are 85.60mm x 56mm x 21mm, which define a little electronic board. Based on the idea that the Arduino Tre is based on an Arduino and BeagleBoard boards, we suppose that this will keep the same measures.

Graphics

Arduino Tre – in this section the most important feature is the HDMI support, which means that the board can be used in several applications for digital or analog TV. The maximum resolution supported by the Tre for video files is 1920×1080 pixels. Any data could be displayed on an LCD screen due to the LCD expansion interface.
Raspberry Pi Model B – the Pi model B has also HDMI support, while for VGA support is required to use an adaptor. To display images on an LCD screen it is also required to use an LCD expansion shield for Raspberry Pi.

Audio

Arduino Tre – the board has HDMI support and stereo analog audio I/O.
Raspberry Pi Model B – it has also HDMI supported and for output uses a standard 3.5mm jack.

Power

Arduino Tre – the board requires a 5V power jack to run.
Raspberry Pi Model B – the Pi board requires the same voltage as Tre – 5V.

Hardware

Arduino Tre – the Tre is based on ARM Cortex-A8 processor by Texas Instrument Sitara with 1 GHz clock speed and 512MB RAM DDR3. A plus compared with Raspberry Pi Model B is that the Tre dedicated microcontrollers for real-time applications.
Raspberry Pi Model B – the B model is based on a low power ARM1176JZ-F processor with a working frequency of 700 MHz and 512MB of SDRAM.

Software

Arduino Tre – it is expected to use the same Arduino IDE written in Java and with support for C or C++ programming language. The operating system that runs on Tre is a full version of Linux.
Raspberry Pi Model B – it is recommended to run on Pi the Linux Debian OS version, while for programming its support Python or Java. Compared with Tre, the Pi can run a customized version of Android, while for Tre we just can suppose that the device can run also the Android OS.

Storage

Arduino Tre – it supports SD cards, but we don’t have any information about the maximum capacity of the memory card supported.
Raspberry Pi Model B – this minicomputer support memory card with up to 32GB memory space, while it is recommended to be used a card with at least 4GB space for storage.

Networking, USB and Wireless

Arduino Tre – the electronic board includes 10/100 wired Ethernet, and an increased number of USB ports are available.
Raspberry Pi Model B – the device has also support for 10/100 wired Ethernet, and dual USB connector.

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Electronics Lab Created By Muhammad Irfan

ELECTRONICS LAB

Friday, January 3, 2014