Browse through this article to get to know high performance microcontroller development boards and kits available from our shop
Introduction
Finding a development board may not be so easy especially if you have special requirements for your projects. You can choose from several Arduino boards such as the popular UNO, MEGA, Mini, Nano, and others. However, these boards are not powerful enough to do compute intensive tasks or Wi-Fi related applications.,
Given this scenario, you may need a development board with a more powerful microcontroller. You’re more likely to look into 32-bit microcontrollers which has a wider data bus (32-bit instead of just 8), more memory, and faster clock speeds. These boards can handle heavier tasks such as displaying animations, playing digital audio, IoT or Wi-Fi development, machine learning, and others.
This article introduces some of these high-performance microcontroller development boards, some of which are newly released or a classic architecture.Â
High Performance Espressif Series Development Boards
Development boards coming from Espressif are high-performance microcontroller boards meant for wireless applications. They have a 32-bit MCU which can have one or more cores depending on the model. Their clock speeds can reach hundreds of megahertz. With these characteristics, they are especially suited for IoT development, Bluetooth, and WiFi applications.
ESP8266 Series
ESP8266 is a single-core Tensilica L106 MCU. It can reach a maximum clock rate of about 160MHz. It’s a cost-effective integrated solution for WiFi and IoT development. This MCU has few peripherals as it’s meant to be used as a network co-processor for another MCU. Note that it can also work in stand-alone mode interacting through various GPIO and serial functions.
ESP32 Series
The ESP32 series of MCUs are high-performance microcontrollers with single or dual Xtensa cores. They can operate to a maximum clock rate of 240MHz. They are a perfect fit for Wi-Fi and IoT development applications. They have distinct advantages over ESP8266 as they have more built-in peripherals and can be dual-core.
The latest iteration of the ESP32 series is ESP32-S3, a more powerful and secure variant than ESP32. ESP32-S3 has also more GPIO pins available than its predecessor, making it more versatile.
ESP32 boards from Adafruit and Unexpected Maker
Adafruit and UM holds several variants of ESP32 boards. As they came from popular maker brands, they have improved form factor and functionality. You’ll find some boards include added sensors/peripherals and even a Li-Ion battery charger.
ESP32 CAM
If you want an ESP32 microcontroller development board with a built-in camera, go for the ESP-32 CAM. This board even has an SD card slot that can capture snapshots remotely. You can use its Web Server application to operate the camera conveniently from a web browser.
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Sale!
CameraESP32-CAM WiFi Bluethooth Development Board with OV2640 Camera Module
Original price was: $31.95.$29.95Current price is: $29.95.
ESP32 Graphical Development Kits
As ESP32s have a generous amount of GPIO pins, they can be used to drive LCD screens. With this, there are several ESP32 Graphical Development tools on the market. Some even have touch functions built. See Below.
High Performance STM32 Series Development Boards
ST Microelectronics is a semiconductor company from Europe that offers a rich set of microcontrollers. These MCUs include 32-bit MCUs (commonly called STM32s). ST boasts of having its in-house IDE with a graphical-based configuration tool. Below are some STM32 based development boards you can check.
STM32 BluePill Dev board
This is a popular 32-bit microcontroller development board to use if you’re not satisfied with the performance of an Arduino UNO or MEGA. The Blue Pill has an STM32F103C8T6 (ARM Cortex M3) that can reach a clock speed up to 72 MHz and has 64KB of Flash and 20KB RAM. It boasts of having native USB device functionality. Interestingly, you can run FreeRTOS on this board to be able to run multitasking code.
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Other Development Boards
STM32F103C8T6 (BluePill) ARM STM32 SWD Arduino Compatible Development Board
$34.95 -
Sale!
Programmers
ST-Link V2 Mini In-Circuit Programmer and Debugger for STM8 / STM32
Original price was: $31.95.$16.95Current price is: $16.95.
STM32 Black Pill Dev board
An STM32 Black Pill is an upgrade from the Blue Pill as it carries an STM32F4 series MCU (STM32F401 or STM32F411) which has higher flash and RAM storage. STM32F4 has an FPU (floating point unit), meaning you can process calculations with decimal points faster on this device.
Another distinct advantage of the Black PIll is it’s native support for digital audio through it’s I2S interface.
STM32 Dev boards from Adafruit
Adafruit also has its set of high-performance STM32 microcontroller development boards. One of them is the Adafruit Feather STM32F405 Express. As always, they have this in an improved form factor with lots of add-on peripherals including a Li-Ion battery charger circuit.
High Performace Raspberry Pi Pico Development Board from Adafruit (RP2040)
The Adafruit Feather RP2040 is an RPI Pico-based high-performance microcontroller development board. It boasts of a Dual ARM Cortex-M0+ MCU that can run up to 133MHz. It has 8MB SPI flash and 264KB of RAM.
As it is a feather board, it has improved form factor, a STEMMA QT connector, and a Lithium-Ion battery charger.
High Performance Low Power Microcontroller Dev Board
Adafruit Feather M0 Adalogger
This unique high-performance microcontroller development board exhibits low-power features. It has an ATSAMD21G18 ARM Cortex M0 processor which is a 32-bit MCU that can only be clocked up to 48 MHz. It has 256KB of flash and 32KB of RAM. With its SD card slot, it can be utilized as a data logger for portable applications.
Conclusion
This article discussed the advantages of using high-performance microcontroller development boards versus their 8-bit counterparts. You can browse through our shop to find the one fit for your projects.
