For our first interview during Kickstarter Week we decided to start at the beginning of hardware design and look at the development board choices for aspiring Kickstarters. This is a good news scenario compared to just a few years ago because not only are there inexpensive and powerful boards available now but all kinds of open source software and libraries can get your prototype all a-blinking in days.
So where do we go looking for dev. boards we can buy today? Google is good but that 200k results problem always comes up so I went to look up old friends at Octopart for help and spoke to Sam Wurzel.
Octopart is a search engine for electronic parts and they have an inspiring origin story that’s worth hearing. Sam and his co-founders were physics grad students in 2006 working on their theses but couldn’t find the parts they needed and so a vertical search engine was born. The team signed up for an early (2007) Y-Combinator incubator class and were on their way.
Today Octopart’s mission is to open up access to part data for design, sourcing, and manufacturing and they do this in several ways. First and foremost, their search engine is free to use. They also have an open API, but behind that they have tech specs, data sheets, images, pricing and availability of parts you need from the world’s largest distributors. Yes, you could go to Digi-Key, Mouser, element14 etc. and search for what you need but why bother when Octopart has it all in one place?
Looking at the Octopart API it allows 3rd parties to use their data, so if you are using EDA tools like Altium Designer, Cadence Upverter etc. or PLM (product lifecycle management) software like Autodesk PLM360 or Arena Solutions you can access Octopart data right inside these tools.
This is a boon for small contract manufacturers who need quick BOM quotes and market pricing for customers like the Kickstarter folks we are featuring this week. In fact Sam mentioned that he is seeing an uptick in activity in small volume quick turn manufacturers which supports the theory that Kickstarter type companies may be changing the market.
Another way Octopart is helping the hardware designer is with their Common Parts Library which was built because newcomers to hardware development find a database of 30 million parts daunting. So if you just need a Bluetooth LE device where do you start? What are the most common parts in use today for connected devices that are available? Octopart mined their data and found this list of the 200 most commonly used parts that are not going end of life soon (big potential mistake) and are used in connected device products today.
These data also helps smaller contract manufacturers who need to build just 1,000 devices but one of the parts isn’t available because it’s obscure or gone end of life (EOL) and surprisingly Sam hears this over and over again. Octopart updates the common parts list regularly (Version 0.4 on September 29) with input from working engineers and contract manufacturers.
Another incredibly useful feature of the site is the ability to filter results by many parameters and for aspiring Kickstarters who need that initial development kit they can search by ARM architecture and get back just what they need, for example:
A search for Development kits using the ARM architecture in stock with pricing comes back with 796 results, all the way from Microchip to Adesto, but if you add a filter for ARM Cortex-M is down to a much more manageable 425 results and then if you know you need a Cortex-M4 kit you can add the filter from the left hand side and get 96 results (see below) and you are much closer to finder the exact board you need and can get it fast from the distributor of your choice.
So in just a few clicks a designer can find the exact development board they need from the rich ARM ecosystem and get it fast. They can even search for test equipment, tools and supplies they need for their design. Octopart is a great utility for all kinds of designers but could be especially valuable for those new to the arcane world of components. Go check it out.
By the way, it seems everyone I talk to has a favorite Kickstarter and Sam is no exception his pick is the cute single station public radio in a mason jar.
Have you got a favorite ARM-based dev. kit?