Buy Development Board Online: Microcontroller Development Boards in India

What is a development board?

A development board is a printed circuit board (PCB) with circuits and hardware designed to help in experimentation with certain microcontroller boards features. It is one of the major things to get started with embedded systems.  A microprocessor development board contains one or more CPUs (processor cores) along with memory and programmable input/output peripherals. Development boards are also known as Microcontroller Development boards (Arduino Boards) or Microprocessor development boards (Raspberry Pi development boards).

What are development boards used for?

Different development boards have different uses based on the application. Microcontroller Development boards are generally used to evaluate and test different programs for embedded devices such as different controllers, home appliances, robots, point-of-sale (PoS) terminals, kiosks and information appliances. Some of the applications of different development boards are given below;

Applications of Arduino UNO Board

Arduino UNO Original or UNO board compatible with arduino can be used to develop RFID sensed devices. It can be used to create industrial appliance control systems by Decoding Dual Tone Multi-Frequency Signals via GSM Network. They can be used as a detection system to find faults in underground cable. Arduino boards can be used to develop a completed home automation system.

Application of Raspberry Pi development Board

The raspberry pi microprocessor is a small development board that can be used to develop a mini computer. It is a useful development board for students that can support all programming languages like HTML, JAVA.  It can even handle WordPress, so you can manage your own blogs/website. The raspberry pi board based robotics are a huge amount of applications in automation industries. it is very easy to develop IOT applications using raspberry pi.

What are the key features of development boards?

• Bits:  Development boards are typically sold by the number of bits that they offer. The number of bits in the development board impacts the speed with which they are able to perform non-trivial computations.
• RAM (Random Access Memory): RAM is a fast access memory that does not retain any data in the absence of power in a microcontroller. All development boards come with certain amounts of RAM, which allows your board to quickly perform various actions. The more you have, the better, but the added RAM increases the cost of the MCU.
• Flash: The flash feature in a development board helps in retaining the data during an absence of power. At least some of this is essential, and it’s very useful for features like offline storage.
• GPIO: GPIO stands for General Purpose Input Output pins. GPIO pins are important in a development board since they are used for connecting your sensors and actuators to the MCU and the internet. The number of pins can range from one to the hundreds, depending on the microcontroller. 
• Connectivity: The connectivity of the microcontroller development board determines how well it can connect to the Internet via Wi-Fi, Ethernet or any other means. This is an important aspect of connected sensor applications, so we’ll go over this topic in greater detail later.
• Power Consumption: This specification tells you the amount of power consumed by a development board by default or it supports power-conscious programming techniques. Power consumption is critically important for connected sensor applications, particularly when your device has to rely on something like a battery or solar power. 
• Development tools and community: In order to get the best use of your development board it is important to determine the quality of the development tools available and the community of the product. There needs to be a mature set of tools, documentation, and community that support and help you build programs that will run on the MCU for Robotics science projects or IoT applications.

What are the most popular microcontrollers?

ATmega328

ATmega328 is Arguably one of the most popular microcontrollers in the world. Atmega328p has been the microcontroller of choice to a lot of designers who want to avoid the bulkiness of the Arduino boards. SOme of the development boards based on this microcontrollers are:

• Nano Board compatible with Arduino

• UNO Board compatible with Arduino

• Pro Mini compatible with Arduino

ESP 32

ESP 32 is a low-cost, low-power system on a chip microcontroller with integrated Wi-Fi and dual-mode Bluetooth. ESP32 also incorporates several security features like Cryptographic hardware acceleration, flash encryption, and secure boot. Witty Fox Storm Board is a great development board that uses ESP32 as it’s microcontroller.

STM8S103F3

The STM8 microcontroller development board offers a high-performance 8-bit core and is considered to be one of the most popular MCUs in the Series. The 8-bit microcontroller offers 8 Kbyte Flash program memory, with an integrated true data EEPROM, advanced core and peripherals, a 16 MHz clock frequency and robust I/Os.

How to choose a microcontroller in IoT?

• Compatibility: The type of microcontroller development board you choose depends upon how compatible it is with the concerned Iot project. Depending on your sensors and actuators, you might need many or just a few ports.
• Architecture: Most applications use either ARM, MIPS, or X86. Choosing one depends on the functional requirements of your application and how much computing power your system needs.
• Memory: It is highly recommended that you choose a microcontroller with a good amount of memory for future updates or any extra requirements you may have.
• Development Kit: Development kits are an excellent way to get started with the MCU you choose because they are designed to give customers an out-of-box experience. This will make the development of your IoT application much easier.
• Community Support: This is a crucial factor for choosing the right microcontroller for IoT projects. A great online community helps you make informed decisions on how to use your MCU properly. A good online community can help you out in any problem that you may encounter while implementing.

Where can I buy good development boards online?

You can find the best development boards online in India from authorized and trusted sellers like Robocraze. Buying from trusted sellers will help you boost your confidence on the reliability and originality of the microcontroller.

Which is the best electronic development board based on my requirement?

• Robotics project

Arduino boards are great for creating robotics based projects. There are two types of Arduino boards; Arduino Original Boards and Boards compatible with arduino. The main advantage of Arduino is its simple programming language. It's designed to make new users get a glimpse and boost their confidence in programming. It's suitable for making a demo model of any idea.

• Engineering project 

Raspberry Pi boards are ideal for engineering related projects. Raspberry Pi Family boards consist of different development boards; Raspberry Pi 4, Raspberry Pi 3 Model A+, Raspberry Pi Zero, Raspberry Pi 3B+, Raspberry Pi 3B, Raspberry Pi Compute Model 3 and many more. The availability of different raspberry pi accessories like camera, keyboard/mouse, lcd display etc makes this development very useful for engineering projects. You can set up a tiny desktop computer with the device.

• Industrial project

NVIDIA Jetson is a powerful development board that has the ability to undertake large industrial based projects. NVIDIA Jetson Nano enables the development of millions of new small, low-power AI systems. It opens new worlds of embedded IoT applications, including entry-level Network Video Recorders (NVRs), home robots, and intelligent gateways with full analytics capabilities.

How much do development boards cost?