Thursday, March 28, 2024

Latest MCU Development Boards Make Prototyping Easier

In this article we try to help you buy the right board by focusing on different categories, new features, general selection criteria and boards that have been in the spotlight. -- Abhishek A. Mutha is a senior technical correspondent at EFY

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Another very important feature in present-day development boards from companies like STMicroelectronics and TI is onboard debugging, informs Virupaksha. He says, “Apart from beginners, most users require this feature. In fact, it is a boon for developers, as they need not invest in a debugger, which costs approximately Rs. 8000.”

Even with all these new features, Thushar feels, basic I/O pins, universal synchronous asynchronous receiver transmitters (USARTs), serial peripheral interface (SPI), I2C, two-wire serial interface (TWI), timers, compare/capture/pulse width modulation (CCP), analogue-to-digital converters (ADCs) and digital-to-analogue converters (DACs) constitute basic features of an MCU, which should always be accounted for as far as a development board is concerned.

With increased focus on smartphone based connected applications, consumers also prefer to work with wireless MCU kits [specifically in the Wi-Fi/Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE)/Bluetooth domain], which have some kind of Android or iOS app to interact with, informs Bhaskar. He says, “Some customers also prefer to have access to the source files of these graphical user interfaces (GUIs)/apps as reference for their own development.”

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For developing IoT applications
The rapid growth of Internet of Things (IoT) applications requires devices to be connected to the Web. Niraj Jha, CEO and MD, Fab.to.Lab, says, “Most people would like to have an Ethernet port or a Wi-Fi module built into the board.” The biggest feature to consider for developing IoT-related products is inbuilt connectivity.

Mehta says, “It is important to consider the kind of connectivity options supported by the MCU like BLE4.0, 2.4GHz wireless technology and others.”

Another important feature is the ease of programming while using the board. Programming becomes much easier if the board can run Linux or Android. “For smaller processors, I would choose a processor architecture that is well-supported and has tons of documentation available online,” states Mehta.

She adds, “Companies like STMicroelectronics and TI provide their own software development kits (SDKs), which wrap all internal hardware-level details for that particular MCU and make it easier to upgrade to a newer processor based on the same architecture.”

Additional onboard features like flash-to-store program, lithium battery charger and SD card support are good to have.

“Last, power consumption and different sleep modes are essential. It is important to consider environmental factors such as adaptability of the board in remote locations running on solar power, or if it can survive on a small battery during unavailability of power for long durations.”

Since the IoT is the talk of the town, Jha feels, some users might also want specific features like a display, motor/servo control for Internet-connected robotics applications or sometimes a combination of a relay built into an IoT-ready board for home automation applications. He says, “Boards specifically made for home automation sometimes have other niche features like mesh networking built in. Other IoT boards may have features like secured cloud connectivity built-in into its software as well.”

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