ChApTEr 2 ■ hArdwArE for IoT SoluTIonS
The board has a powerful A20 processor (much faster than some other boards) with 1Gb of memory as
well as an HDMI interface supporting an amazing 1080p resolution with its onboard video processor. It also
has WiFi, Ethernet, audio, USB, a MicroSD drive, and even a SATA drive controller that permits the addition
of spindle or solid-state hard drives for storage. Indeed, the feature list of this board is quite impressive.
As given the category, the board is compatible with the popular Arduino ecosystem such as Arduino
shields. It also has its own header of I/O pins with 14 general-purpose I/O pins (GPIO for short), 2 PWM, 6
ADC, and 1 each of UART, SPI, and I2C pins. Figure 2-25 shows the latest pcDuino3B board.
■Note The pcduino3B supports only Arduino uno r3 3.3v shields.
I have often used the pcDuino3B as a traveling Arduino lab. Given its powerful computing features, the
fact that the operating system is run from onboard memory storage and I can run the Arduino IDE from
the desktop permits me to interact with the Arduino shields and hardware easily without having to lug
around a separate computer, cable, Arduino, and so on. Best of all, it can be powered by USB.
I have also used the pcDuino3B as a database server (see Chapter 5 ) and a web server. Since it runs
Ubuntu, there is little this small board cannot do. Perhaps the only downside is that it costs about twice
as much as some of the other boards (but not nearly as much as the Intel boards). Thus, if you had to
decide between this board and a cheaper board, it may come down to whether you need the power of the
pcDuino3B versus the lower cost (and fewer features).
For more information and the full specifications of the pcDuino3B, see http://linksprite.com/wiki/
index.php5?title=PcDuino3B.
Figure 2-25. pcDuino3B