Ten 32-bit maker boards
The maker market is awash with high-performance maker boards, with more on the way. Darren Yates looks at ten options that go way beyond the Arduino Uno. “They may not be endowed with lashings
The Arduino Uno and Nano boards are incredibly popular, easy to use and surprisingly robust. They may not be endowed with lashings of performance, but they come with an excellent array of I/O ports and functions to make it easy to connect up almost anything. Yet eventually, that 8-bit performance becomes a road block, and if you’re in need of more speed, there are plenty of options that leave those 8-bit Arduino boards behind.
ARDUINO M0
Despite all else, Arduino is still the first name most makers hear and the brand is creating a new series of MKR-family boards focusing on compact design and, increasingly, wireless communications. The brand-new MKR GSM 1400 is a slim board incorporating a global 3G mobile network module on top and a SIM card slot underneath. It’s powered by the same 48MHz Microchip SAMD21 ARM Cortex-M0 microcontroller inside the Arduino M0 and has a range of extras, including 12-bit ADC and 10-bit DAC. It can also be powered by a single-cell Lithium-polymer battery — in fact, you must provide one if you’re using the 3G mobile. The 3G power demands exceed standard USB power, so the battery has to supply the peak. What’s great about it, though, is the GSM 1400 appears to have on-board hardware to charge the battery via USB. Even better, you still program it via the standard Arduino IDE. If you have a project idea needing 3G comms, start here — it’ll be available mid-November 2017 ( tinyurl.com/ybm9t92t).
ARDUINO MKR ZERO
Arduino’s new MKR series is gaining plenty of traction, thanks to its combination of 32-bit performance in a skinny Arduino Nano-like form-factor. The MKR Zero is essentially the MKR GSM 1400 without the ‘GSM’ bit, meaning no 3G connectivity, but you get the same 48MHz Atmel SAMD21 microcontroller. What’s more, the MKR Zero features on-board circuitry for charging LiPo batteries, plus a microSD card reader. Throw in an on-board single-channel 10-bit DAC, the downloadable Arduino Sound library and you can get the MKR Zero playing back your PCM WAV audio files with relative ease. It also has an I2S bus to connect up external audio decoding chips. Along with the Arduino M0, this is now the cheapest of the official