Arduino 101 Review - Dual Core processor and Hardware Neural Network inside

The board offers some amazing features like a dual core processor and a Hardware Neural Network for Artificial Intelligence applications. Without any further delay, let's get started!

At first let's take a look at the board. As you can see, the layout of the board is exactly the same with the layout of the Arduino Uno board. The chip uses 3.3V logic level but it is 5V tolerant. On the board we can see the Intel Curie chip, the Bluetooth Antenna some Logic level shifting chips and a Flash Memory Chip.

The Intel Curie chip is really interesting. I have created a simple table in order to be easier to see the most important features of this chip. It was developed by Intel for low-power wearable devices. There are two processors inside this chip both clocked at 32MHz. There is an ARC RISC processor and an x86 Quark processor. Both processors operate simultaneously. The ARC core executes the programs we develop and communicates with the x86 core that takes care of the Bluetooth Low Energy stack and USB communication.

The chip also offers Bluetooth LE connectivity, 24KBs of RAM memory, 196KBs of flash memory, 14 GPIO pins, SPI, I2C, UART, I2S busses, up to 6 ADCs, Gyroscope, A six axis Accelerometer and a Real Time Clock.

In my opinion the most interesting feature the chip offers is the Pattern Matching Engine! This Engine contains a 128 node Hardware Neural Network.

Compared to an Arduino Uno, the Arduino 101 is light years ahead! The technology inside the Intel Curie chip is very advanced! As you can see it outperforms the Arduino Uno in every field. From the specs we can see the Arduino 101 operates at a frequency which is double of the frequency that the Arduino Uno operates. So, in theory the Arduino 101 must be at least two times faster than the Arduino Uno. But is that the case?

Want to learn to code?

[JamesEzell]

difference between a $7 board and a $30 board? Intel inside

[jeanchindeko]

Hi, in fact the Intel Curie has 3 cores as the Bluetooth is handle not by the x86 core but by the embedded Nordic Semiconductor nRF51 Cortex M0 core. Need to note that the nRF51 firmware can be updated also.

[MartynCole]

It's possible that there's no mention of the neural network because it doesn't work properly :)

[jamieh]

Love that Arduino is moving forward but... it's not enough! Why didn't the guys at Arduino collaborate with the guys at Espressif Systems, basing the "new" Arduino on the ESP32 - after all, it works with the IDE. Twice as fast is not enough, the next gen should be an order of magnitude greater...

[Tarbard]

Intel should have hired you to market this board, it seems interesting now - I didn't know about the Neural Network.

[rubnzone]

I do not understand something. It has two processors, so can I create threads and decide that two tasks are executed simultaneously? How would you do that if possible? Do you have documentation? Because I at least did not find anything.

[matthwc]

I had this board for over 6 months and I did not know it had a neural network and also a x86 especially considering I have an FPGA you think I'd know this.
I really haven't made too many projects on it yet because lack of ideas to really show off what it can do better than an uno and like you said not much library support still not do people have videos to show things the 101 can do. I'm looking forward to seeing your project you'll make on the 101!

[sumedhburbure]

Very excited for your upcoming neural network project!!

[lxtz]

Will you also record some instructional videos about the hardware neural network of Arduino 101? I also have an arduino 101. But I don't know anything about neural networks. And I don't know where to start learning about its hardware neural network, and there is very little teaching about it online.

[duncanyoung]

loads of librarys etc, like where you could load led ws2812b patterns from the isp flash and play them from externel flash in real tme ect x

[brunobrito]

Hi Nick,
Can't wait to see what you have planned for it.
Face recognition would be a great application !

[Perspectologist]

Nice review. Looking forward to seeing a neural-net project. I'm concerned about the future of Arduino hardware. They seem to have some leadership problems, and their hardware ecosystem seemed confusing to me when I last looked. Their boards seem expensive and more limited than competing platforms. Their software community seems great, but their hardware seems like it is loosing relevance.

[monubhandarikumar]

Hello sir
I want to asked you a simple question
Is it possible to add Google search engine inside my arduino humanoid robot so if I give some voice commands to arduino then it goes inside the Google and search about that and then answer me with the help of voice

[duncanyoung]

Why dont you port an arduino adition i know you can, i wish i could

[chemgreec]

please do a simple neural network tutorial with this, i am really interested!! thanks!

[dimpap]

Also, all the digital pins of this board are interrupts

[tubical]

I never knew it has a builtin neural network....thanx for the info, , i think i give it a go now...

[Benjamin-wydj]

Hi i have a question. Is it a good idea to buy the arduino 101 or in which case genuino 101 for me as i read that the board has stop production?

[ugurokur]

will you do some project ESP32 ? i dont see description video on our channel for ESP32

[darthvader]

Wow - for a hobbyist getting your head around pseudo-C to neural networks..
Next - I'm guessing we will be experimenting on the Arduino with string theory..

;^)==