

Itโs been another tumultuous year in the world of embedded electronics. Supply chain snags have scarcely relented, while new chips jostle for position as the makerโs go-to. Meanwhile, lots of exciting new boards, software, and other technologies let us continue to innovate. Letโs survey the maker landscape and see who stepped up when the chips were down!
PUTTING THE NO IN ARDUINO?
Arduino Week in March was a brilliant virtual event, showcasing amazing new products โ but frustrated makers couldnโt get their hands on many items being showcased because supply issues prevented them from being manufactured.
But even when thereโs no hardware to hack on, software development can continue, which led to the release of the new Arduino IDE 2.0 in September. The complete ground-up rewrite ditches 1.xโs Java-based Processing origins for the Eclipse Theia framework, familiar from Microsoftโs wildly popular and extensible Visual Studio Code IDE. Read more about it on our blog โ and flip to page 47 in this section to sneak an exclusive peek at Arduinoโs exciting new Make Your Uno kit!
PI NOT ALWAYS EASY
The Raspberry Pi Foundation is finding great success in the microcontroller market, as its Pico and new Pico W (wireless) microcontroller dev boards find their way into a plethora of projects, not to mention the RP2040 chip that powers them. Meanwhile the trend of porting Python projects to microcontrollers using Adafruitโs CircuitPython platform โ instead of relying on the grunt of single-board computers โ continues to prove popular, benefiting the whole RP2040 ecosystem.
But not everything is so sweet in Pi world, with SBCs practically unobtainable for as long as we can remember. If you check rpilocator.com every day, you may be lucky enough to get your hands on a CM4 compute module, which you can pair with a carrier board like Timonskuโs Piunora, but the stalwart Pi 4 is often only available via secondary markets, typically for several times list price.
NO NEW NORMAL
Some experts predict weโll see things back to โnormalโ or at least stabilizing by 2023. In the meantime, we revel in the novel solutions and workarounds we see in the community, and we hope this special section, and our annual Make: Guide to Boards, help make your making a little easier this year!
The above is article is the opening statement of our “Boards Guide 2022”. Our yearly look at what the biggest news, advancements, and achievements are in the world of development boards. Below, you’ll find a teaser of what was included in this issue. Be sure to subscribe to get the whole story!
โข WHEN CHIPS ARE SCARCE page 36 – also now online!
Scarcity continues to pinch makers and manufacturers alike. We interviewed a range of stakeholders from the supply chain spectrum, from distributors and big-name board makers down to individual maker pros, to ask how theyโre affected and when โ or if โ supplies of components will return to normal.
โข RISC-V REVOLUTION page 42 – also now online!
If you canโt get the chips you want, why not make your own? Open silicon is evolving at an incredible pace, with RISC-V chip architecture expanding from experimental FPGAs into mainstream boards like Espressifโs ESP32-C3. PINE64 is using RISC-V MCUs in its Pinecils and working on a 64-bit RISC-V single-board computer.Even laptops and cyberdecks are going RISC-V, with ClockworkPi offering an R-01 spec of its popular DevTerm deck using Allwinnerโs D1 64-bit single-core RISC-V chip.
โขย THE REPLACEMENTSย page 46 – also now online!
Makers are gonna make, whether thereโs a shortage or not. Weโve lined up some recommendations for when your favorite board turns unobtainium โ use our infographic to see what substitutes might work for your next project!
โข MAKE: GUIDE TO BOARDS 2022
Included in the bag with this mag, youโll find our 12-page Guide to Boards, new and updated for 2022! We touch on top trends and dive into details of 79 of the hottest microcontrollers, single-board computers, and FPGAs โ with an emphasis on boards you can get right now.
We also went hands-on with a dozen of our favorite new and notable boards, which youโll find described in the guide as well as in our exclusive video review. Donโt forget to grab the Digi-Key AR app so you can watch the video and see the featured boards come alive before your eyes!
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