GigaDevice Launches an "All-in-One" Arm Cortex-M33 Dev Board, Offers Units Free of Charge
Selected on-board sensors are joined by an off-board 0.96" color IPS display and a capacitive fingerprint sensor breakout.
Beijing-based embedded hardware specialist GigaDevice has launched an "all-in-one" development kit built around its GD32W515 Arm Cortex-M33 microcontroller unit — and coming with built-in storage, a microphone, temperature sensor, a compact color display, and a capacitive fingerprint scanner. Better still: it's giving them away.
"GigaDevice […] is proud to introduce the new All-in-One kit: GD-xD-W515-Eval Board," the company writes of its latest launch, brought to our attention by CNX Software. "This evaluation platform leverages various GigaDevice products, enabling customers to evaluate multiple hardware and software combinations all within one comprehensive kit."
The board is built around the company's GD32W515PIQ6 microcontroller, which provides a single Arm Cortex-M33 core running at up to 180MHz, Arm TrustZone capabilities, 448kB of static RAM (SRAM), 2MB of on-board flash memory, and up to 43 general-purpose input/output (GPIO) pins — none of which, sadly, are brought out for external hardware's use on the development board. Elsewhere on the board is the GigaDevice GD25Q128E SPI NOR flash module, providing 16MB of off-chip storage, and a built-in microphone — though, perhaps oddly, no speaker, though there is a small vibrator.
The main board comes with two expansion headers, with accessories bundled in the box: one links to a 0.96" color IPS LCD display with a 160×80 resolution, while the other links to a capacitive fingerprint scanner based on GigaDevice's GSL6157 sensor. In an interesting design choice, there's also a very visible stylized fingerprint picked out in copper on the main board itself — but this is a capacitive switch, and can't be used as a fingerprint scanner.
The board can be powered from its micro USB connection, with an unusually outdated mini-USB port provided for GD-Link debugging support; there's an on-board connector for an optional lithium-polymer battery, with support for fuel gauge and charge rates up to 1.5A provided by a GigaDevice GD30BC2416.
Unusually, while GigaDevice has launched the board it hasn't offered pricing; instead, it's asking interested parties to get in touch in order to qualify for a free sample board via the GD-xD-W515-Eval Board product page.