List of cheap ARM MCU development boards

[AloyseTech]

Hi,
I would like to make a list of the cheapest (sub 10-15$) ARM development boards. Any addition to this list is welcome!

ST Microelectronic
STM32F103C8T6 development board (aka "Blue Pill") - 2$ (Aliexpress)
STM32F030F4P6 development board - 2$ (Aliexpress)
STM32F407VET6 - 10$ (Aliexpress)
STM32F407VGT6 - 10$ (Aliexpress)
STM32F0DISCOVERY - 15$ (Alexpress)
PYBoard MicroPython Python STM32F405 IoT Development Board - 16$ (banggood)
STM32 Nucleo-32 (STM32 F0 F3 L0 L4) - 10.32$ (stmicroelectronic.com, without shipping)
STM32 Nucleo-64  (STM32 F0 F1 F3 F4 L0 L1 L4) - 10.32$ to 15$ (stmicroelectronic.com, without shipping)
STM32 Nucleo-144 (STM32 F2 F3 F4 F7 L4 L4+ H7) - 19$ to 23$ (stmicroelectronic.com, without shipping)
STM32G0316-DISCO - 9$ (stmicroelectronic.com/distributors, without shipping)

Infineon
XMC 2Go (XMC1100 target, XMC4200 debugger) - 6$ (infineon.com, 5$ shipping)
XMC4500 Relax Lite Kit - 12$ (infineon.com, 5$ shipping)

Cypress
CY8CKIT-043 - 4$ (cypress.com, shipping vary) / 8$ (Aliexpress)
CY8CKIT-059 - 10$ (cypress.com, shipping vary) / 20$ (Aliexpress)

Atmel/Microchip
SAMD21G18A development board - 10$ (Aliexpress)
SAM3X8E (Arduino DUE clone) - 14$ (Aliexpress)
SAMD11 CMSIS-DAP - 10$ (tindie.com, shipping vary, from user @ataradov)
ATSAMD10-XMINI - 9$ (microchipdirect.com, without shipping) / 11$ (mouser, without shipping)
Adafruit Trinket M0 - 9$ (adafruit, without shipping) / 9$ (mouser, without shipping)
Adafruit Gemma M0 - 10$ (adafruit, without shipping) / 10$ (mouser, without shipping)
Adafruit ItsyBitsy M0 Express - 12$ (adafruit, without shipping) / 12$ (mouser, without shipping)
Adafruit ItsyBitsy M4 Express - 15$ (adafruit, without shipping) / 15$ (mouser, without shipping)
Adafruit SAMD09 breakout - 5$ (Adafruit, without shipping)
SushiBits M23 Mini Pro - TBD (Tindie, without shipping)

Maxim
MAX32625PICO# - 10$ (maxim.com, 15$ shipping!) / 11.47$ (Mouser)

Freescale (NXP)
Teensy LC - 12$ (pjrc.com, ++shipping)
BBC:MicroBit USB interface - 15$ (mouser, without shipping)

NXP
Olimex LPC-P1114 - 14.50$ (Mouser)
mBuino LPC11U24 - 15$ (mouser, without shipping) [End Of Life?]
MIMXRT1010-EVK - 10.09$ (mouser) 500MHz Cortex-M7 with High Speed USB, audio codec, 6DOF IMU

Texas Instrument
MSP-EXP432P401R - 15$ (Mouser) / 13$ (ti.com, 7$ shipping)
EK-TM4C123GXL - 15$ (Mouser) / 13$ (ti.com, 7$ shipping)

Nuvoton
NuMaker Uno NUC131SD2AE - 10$ (sales on direct.nuvoton.com, 7$ shipping)
M052LAN Module - 6$ (AliExpress)
M054LAN Module - 6$ (AliExpress)
M058LAN Module - 7$ (AliExpress)
M0516LAN Module - 7.5$ (AliExpress)

Nordic
HolyIOT YJ-16009-nRF51822 - 6$ (Aliexpress)
HolyIOT YJ-16048-nRF52832 - 7$ (Aliexpress)
BBC:MicroBit - 15$ (mouser, without shipping)

Dialog Semiconductor
HJ-580LA Wireless Bluetooth BLE DA14580 - 9$ (Aliexpress) / 5$ (Aliexpress, no 32kHz crystal)

Silicon Labs
BGM220 Bluetooth Module Explorer Kit BGM220-EK4314A - 9.99$ (Mouser)

[MasterT]

Mouser ( Digikey),  STM32 ---> NUCLEO series:
https://www.mouser.ca/Embedded-Solutions/Engineering-Tools/Embedded-Development-Tools/_/N-cvw9k?Keyword=nucleo&FS=True&Ns=Pricing|0
Starting below $15 CAD.

[Mr. Scram]

Cypress sells various development boards for $10 a pop. They have their own free IDE.

[eliocor]

from http://wiki.stm32duino.com/index.php?title=Main_Page :
http://wiki.stm32duino.com/index.php?title=STM32F103_boards
http://wiki.stm32duino.com/index.php?title=STM32F4xx_boards

[Nominal Animal]

Teensy LC is under $12 USD (48 MHz ARM Cortex-M0+ (Kinetis MKL26Z64VFT4), 62k Flash, 8k RAM; uses a proprietary bootloader). (Also sold by Adafruit, SparkFun, and others for under $15.) It can be programmed in the Arduino environment using the Teensyduino add-on. The developer, Paul Stoffregen, is an active Arduino contributor. Active user forum at forum.pjrc.com.

[JXL]

MSP-EXP432P401R (Cortex-M4F) $13.49 (digikey)

[technix]

Here is a series of chips I designed: https://www.tindie.com/products/maxtch/sushibits-arm-development-kits/. You can choose among various STM32 parts: STM32F0, STM32L0, STM32F1, STM32L1, STM32F3, STM32L4, as well as some Chinese-made chips from manufacturers like GigaDevice, Shanghai Beiling, Synwit, Artery and more.

And I have just designed a new kit based on an older chip LPC2103.

[mtdoc]

TI  Tiva C Series TM4C123G LaunchPad  (ARM Cortex-M4F)

$12.99 at the TI store
$13.49 at Mouser and Digikey

[EntropyWizard]

List of many STM32 boards: https://github.com/STM32-base/STM32-base/wiki/Boards

[Mr. Scram]

TI  Tiva C Series TM4C123G LaunchPad  (ARM Cortex-M4F)

$12.99 at the TI store
$13.49 at Mouser and Digikey

It should be noted that buying from the Ti store can be an absolute pain.

[mtdoc]

TI  Tiva C Series TM4C123G LaunchPad  (ARM Cortex-M4F)

$12.99 at the TI store
$13.49 at Mouser and Digikey

It should be noted that buying from the Ti store can be an absolute pain.

Really?  I've used them 4 or 5 times and never had an issue.

[Mr. Scram]

Really?  I've used them 4 or 5 times and never had an issue.

They kept refusing my order without indicating why until I gave up. It were simple development boards without restricted parts. I've bought from various vendors and manufacturers and none gave me much trouble.

[technix]

Really?  I've used them 4 or 5 times and never had an issue.

They kept refusing my order without indicating why until I gave up. It were simple development boards without restricted parts. I've bought from various vendors and manufacturers and none gave me much trouble.

Depending on where you are the US government have the power to cut you off from anything from USA. I have been consistently denied download of Xilinx ISE due to US Department of Commerce banning anyone in China from accessing Xilinx's FPGA technology.

[Mr. Scram]

Depending on where you are the US government have the power to cut you off from anything from USA. I have been consistently denied download of Xilinx ISE due to US Department of Commerce banning anyone in China from accessing Xilinx's FPGA technology.

I know that happens and that can be a huge pain to some, but for various reasons I don't think that was the issue here.

It's funny how some Aliexpress shops have Xilinx FPGA boards on offer.

[AloyseTech]

Thanks guys! I’ve updated the first post. I know there are a lot of STM32 boards. My goal is add more manufacturers to this list

[rsjsouza]

I know it is a bit over, but under $20 (still a reasonable price) from TI you have various other powerful options:

MSP432P4111 48MHz Cortex M4F with a large LCD controller and 16-bit ADC -$17.99
http://www.ti.com/tool/MSP-EXP432P4111

MSP432E401Y 120MHz Cortex M4F, Ethernet and USB OTG - $19.99
http://www.ti.com/tool/MSP-EXP432E401Y

TMS570/RM42 80MHz Cortex R4 - $19.99
http://www.ti.com/tool/LAUNCHXL-RM42
http://www.ti.com/tool/LAUNCHXL-TMS57004

TMS570LS1224 160MHz Dual Cortex R4F in lockstep - $19.99
http://www.ti.com/tool/LAUNCHXL2-TMS57012

RM46L852 220MHz Dual Cortex R4F in lockstep - $19.99
http://www.ti.com/tool/LAUNCHXL2-RM46

[Nominal Animal]

At the risk of sounding like a shill, my absolute favourite microcontroller is the USD $20 Teensy 3.2: 72MHz Cortex M4 (NXP/Freescale MK20DX256), 64k RAM, 256k Flash, 34 I/O pins, 3.3V logic but most pins 5V tolerant, lots of peripherals; programmed via the native USB (full speed, 12 Mbit/s max) interface. (The bootloader is on a separate chip, and is proprietary.) The hardware is nice, but I've found the hbbyist support/community even better. (Programmed using Teensyduino add-on to the Arduino environment; lots of extra optimized libraries by Paul Stoffregen.) Might be a totally different experience for large scale producers, although I do know that PJRC also sells the preprogrammed bootloader chips for those who want to make their own boards. More info in the forum there.

[donotdespisethesnake]

At the risk of sounding like a shill,

Since you posted the same information just a few posts ago, yes you do. We got the message the first time.

[BBBbbb]

Really?  I've used them 4 or 5 times and never had an issue.

They kept refusing my order without indicating why until I gave up. It were simple development boards without restricted parts. I've bought from various vendors and manufacturers and none gave me much trouble.

Never had problems with ordering dev boards from them, comes within one week usually, although they can be slow to ship. I'd wait for (frequent) free shipment offer and then order what I like, few boards max. I know people complained when ordering ICs directly from TI. Restricted items can be a big PITA, although I have no problem ordering them from big distributors...

[Mr. Scram]

Maybe I've been unlucky, but it seems more people have found Ti to be cumbersome at times. Ordering from the big distributors or other manufacturers directly never caused issues, so the problem can be avoided.

That TMS570LS1224 looks like a mightily complicated but interesting beast. It seems to have some more advanced power requirements with two rails and I guess some requisite current limiting? I've never seen that before.

[Nominal Animal]

Since you posted the same information just a few posts ago, yes you do. We got the message the first time.

I did not. Learn to read, please. They are two completely different boards, with a 2x price difference. LC has a Cortex-M0 (MKL26Z64VFT4) and is ~ $12, 3.2 is a Cortex-M4 (MK20DX256VLH7).

[ogden]

STM32F103C8T6 development board (aka "Blue Pill") - 2$ (Aliexpress)

Just two cents: due to pin compatibility you can put virtually any 48-pin stm32 on bluepill board provided you have hot air station and know how to use it. I converted my few "playground bluepills" to stm32f303 in virtually no time. Well, you have to wait for chips (samples) to arrive

[AloyseTech]

@Nominal Animal: The teensy is a good platform, but it lacks SWD access for debug. Freescale kinetis boards are more expensive though...

@ogden: good point! I havve never thought of this and will try it with a stm32f4

@BBBbbb: let us know when you catch the next "free shipping" offer from TI!

[technix]

STM32F103C8T6 development board (aka "Blue Pill") - 2$ (Aliexpress)

Just two cents: due to pin compatibility you can put virtually any 48-pin stm32 on bluepill board provided you have hot air station and know how to use it. I converted my few "playground bluepills" to stm32f303 in virtually no time. Well, you have to wait for chips (samples) to arrive

This also works for a lot of other Chinese Cortex-M MCUs. So far on the same SushiBits One v3.6 board I have chips from GigaDevice, Betterlife, MindMotion and Artery.

[PCB.Wiz]

Thanks guys! I’ve updated the first post. I know there are a lot of STM32 boards. My goal is add more manufacturers to this list

You can find some Nuvoton Boards here - 5V ARM M0/M4 , and 3v3 ones too...
https://direct.nuvoton.com/en/