What changed in the new Due?

Question

I recently purchased a batch of Due boards and find that they are cosmetically different. After attaching the Atmel-ICE and reading the firmware from both processors, I find that the firmware is different. The green masked one had a sticker indicating a new IDE should be downloaded from arduino.

The back of the board shows silkscreen changes to the logo (DUE in an oval rather than rectangle) but both boards say BOARD MODEL DUE R3-E. The traces appear the same, the placement of parts appears the same, and other than different colored headers the parts are similar. The main processor has the same part number, but distinctly different markings. Internally the processors report the same device signature and revision.

What has changed in the firmware? Are there other changes I've missed? Other than needing an even newer IDE are there changes that will affect my sketches?

If I load the older firmware onto the newer Due processors, should it operate the same, allowing use of the old IDE, and in case my sketches do face a problem with the new version?

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• Adam Davis: I obtained these from digikey, and both boards came in the same batch. They were packaged according to arduino's usual packaging with stickers, etc. I have no reason to believe I've received parts made by someone else.
• evolutionizer: It may have something to do with the fact that the arduino is no longer being made it Italy. The US ones are made by adafruit and the china ones by seeedstudio.
• Adam Davis: @evolutionizer Both are marked quite clearly in the back silkscreen MADE IN ITALY with the country's outline.
• Adam Davis: But looking carefully I see the 'new' one has ARDUINO.ORG and the other WWW.ARDUINO.CC So perhaps this is fallout from the founder breakup. Which is which, though? And why change the firmware?
• evolutionizer: I was right and wrong :) The one you have is made by arduino.org who was already manufacturing the boards. I believe they have changed the silkscreen to differentiate. I believe Seeed Studio and Adafruit havent started selling it yet. As for the firmware, there will be no difference as they all still primarily maintained by arduino.cc

Answer 1

The 'new' board with green soldermask and the lighter headers is made by arduino.org. The old one was probably made by the same company, but prior to the split in the founders.

Right now there is arduino.cc (the original website) and arduino.org (the website set up by the company that split from Arduino). There is a lot of different perspectives about who really owns Arduino and I won't attempt to weigh in here.

The changes in firmware are still unknown. It's likely that they are simple strings or response changes so the boards can be differentiated in software. The new IDE is in alpha, and is yet another attempt to differentiate between the two Arduino groups. I haven't attempted to program either with either group's IDE, but if I do I'll update this answer with the results.

At least there's a way to visually identify the difference once received - wish they had given them different part numbers so Digikey wouldn't have sent me a mixture...

• evolutionizer: Since the whole thing is a mess and there is only arduino.org still distributing the arduino, this is what you will be getting irrespective of where you order from.
• evolutionizer: it also looks like arduno.cc is only producing 2 boards arduino.cc/en/Main/GenuinoBrand