Boards Guide

The 2024 Make: Guide to Boards is a must-have for any maker. It features a Cambrian explosion of microcontrollers and single-board computers, which means there are more options than ever before for your upcoming projects, including your most challenging AI, 3D, or video builds. The era of broad component shortages is over, so you can finally get your hands on the parts you need to bring your ideas to life. Companies are launching new flagship designs, like the Arduino Uno R4 and Raspberry Pi 5, which are sure to inspire new and exciting projects. Makers rejoice! The future is bright.

DigiKey's Innovation Hub is an immersive web experience that lets you explore featured products, tools, boards, calculators, and more. It's designed for students, makers, and engineers, and it gives you a one-stop shop for a curated selection of the resources and content that DigiKey has to offer. The Innovation Hub includes a Test Bench, Boards Explorer, Featured Products, Calculator, and Knowledge Center. Click here to visit the Innovation Hub's Board Explorer to get all the details on boards featured in the 2024 Make: Guide to Boards!

RASPBERRY PI 5

With 2-3x the performance of the previous generation, faster CPU, GPU, Wi-Fi, USB, and microSD, the Raspberry Pi 5 represents a giant leap forward for the credit-card-sized SBC. Custom RP1 silicon offloads I/O from the application processor, helping keep costs down. Dual 4Kp60 outputs and PCIe 2.0 support mean desktop-class performance starting at just $60! Oh, and did we mention it has A POWER BUTTON!!!?

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ARDUINO UNO R4 WIF

Originally announced at Maker Faire, the Arduino UNO is probably the single most recognizable dev board in the makerverse. And now it's back, more powerful than ever, thanks to a partnership with Renesas. The 32-bit RA4M1 Cortex-M4 MCU trounces earlier 8-bit models, while retaining the 5V operating voltage required for compatibility with over a decade and a half of shields. And with Wi-Fi via an ESP32-S3 coprocessor, plus a built-in 12×8 LED matrix, this board might be the only ONE you need!

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SEEED XIAO ESP32S3 SENSE

Dual-core 240MHz MCU? Check. 8MB each of PSRAM and flash? Yep. Built-in Wi-Fi/BLE, and charger? Uh-huh. Onboard camera and microphone. You got it. Must be huge, right? Nope! This $14 ML-capable marvel somehow packs all of this and more into the classic 21×17.5mm XIAO form factor!!!

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ADAFRUIT METRO M7

Adafruit's Metro line represents their take on Arduino's UNO form factor, although they have been steadily outpacing their roots with increasingly powerful 32-but MCUs. The M7, named for its beefy 500MHz Arm core, represents the zenith of this evolution, and a special red DigiKey/NXP collab edition replaces the ESP32 coprocessor with a microSD slot for just $20!

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ADAFRUIT FEATHER RP2040 SCORPIO

It's Scorpio season year-round with this clever Feather from Adafruit! Thanks to the RP2040's programmable input/output (PIO), the SCORPIO can blast LED-driving data through eight outputs simultaneously, via the magic of DMA (direct memory access) – leaving all of your MCU cycles available for other tasks.

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M5STACK CORES3

This brilliant little box is the perfect core for all of your projects! With a built-in 2" 320×240 touchscreen and camera, IMU, proximity sensor and magnetometer, plus microSD card and RTC, you might not need anything else! An integrated speaker and amp plus a 240MHz ESP32-S3 MCU make this adorable unit anything but normcore!

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SEEED XIAO ESP32C3

We're enamoured with the itty-bitty XIAO form factor, and this variant in particular, due to its 160MHz RISC-V MCU with built-in Wi-Fi and BLE 5! Programmable in Arduino, MicroPython, and CircuitPython, this thumbnail-sized phenom is a steal at just $5, antenna included!

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DFROBOT LATTEPANDA SIGMA

Beast boards are beating back baby boards in every battle this year, and this panda-powered predator is the fiercest amongst them. With an i5-1340P CPU and up to 32GB of LPDDR5 RAM, gobs of I/O, and an Arduino-compatible ATmega32U4 co-processor, the LattePanda Sigma earns its self-coined title of most powerful hackable singleboard server.

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ADAFRUIT QT PY S3

From bijou to behemoth, this year's boards are all over the size scale. The QT Py S3 is Adafruit's XIAO-compatible 240MHz ESP32-S3-powered lil' dynamo, with the added benefit of a SparkFun Qwiic-compatible STEMMA QT I2C connector for solderless prototyping in Arduino or CircuitPython!

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ARDUINO NANO ESP32

The Nano ESP32 represents the highest-profile example of a new partnership with Espressif, featuring an ESP32-S3 and 16MB of Flash in Arduino's diminutive Nano form factor. In addition to being compatible with the company's eponymous IDE, this board is ideally suited to the new Arduino Lab for MicroPython and Arduino IoT Cloud.

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DFROBOT UNIHIKER

Wherever you're headed on the great trail of life, DFRobot's UNIHIKER might be the ideal companion. With a builtin 2.8" touchscreen, WiFi and Bluetooth, and a mic, light sensor, accelerometer, and gyroscope onboard, UNIHIKER will make sure you're headed in the right direction. With a ton of built-in software and great documentation, you'll be reaching new heights in no time.

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ARDUINO PORTENTA X8

While the Pico encroaches into Arduino's MCU domain, the Portenta X8 could be seen as a shot back at Raspberry Pi, with a powerful i.MX 8M Mini running Linux. The surprise announcement of the Portenta HAT Carrier escalates things even further, giving the X8 a Pi form factor and compatible headers!

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