Intel Galileo – Best Development Board for DIY Projects
Intel Galileo is a new development board based on Quark processors and was announced by Intel in the year 2013. Today, it is considered to be one of the best development boards for all electronics hobbyists and DIY project lovers. It is a microcontroller based development board with Intel Quark SoC X1000 application processor. The software and hardware pins of the board are compatible withArduino designed for Uno R3 and the operating voltage of Intel Galileo is about 3.3 V. Also it uses the Linux as its operating system.
Today, Intel Galileo is specially designed for interactive, simple and complex projects like humanoid robots. This development board allows communication with Arduino, microcontrollers and other PCs. The main advantage of using Quark processors is that it requires only less power and has fewer prices. This processor has 400MHz speed, 16KB L1 cache and has an embedded SRAM with 512 KB. The introductory price of Galileo Development Board was about US $70.
Electrical Specifications
General Board
A general study of the board is given below: This development board consists of:
Micro-SD Card: The development board uses 32 Gigabyte SD Cards.
Ethernet: It helps in the connection of Galileo upto 10 or 100 Megabytes per seconds LAN.
Arduino Connectors: The different types of Arduino connectors in the Galileo board are Analog input header of 6 pin (A0-A6), Power header of 8 pin (5V, 3.3V, Reset, GND), Digital Input/output header of 8 pin (D0-D7) having Universal Asynchronous Receiver/ Transmitter) (UART), PWM (pulse width modulator)on pins 6, 5, and 3, Digital Input/output header of 10 pin (D8-SCL).
USB Client: Connect the computer to program Galileo with Adruino.
Reboot Button: This button helps to reboot the Galileo Board.
Power Supply: 5V power supply is given to the Galileo board.
USB 2.0: This provides an interface with USB devices.
Memory: 8MBFlash memory is used to store firmware, 11KB EEPROM is a non-volatile memory, and a micro-SD supports 32GB cards.
Pin 13 LED: To the pin 13 of the board, a LED is connected.
Power: Galileo is powered via an AC-to-DC adapter, connected by plugging a 2.1mm center-positive plug into the board's power jack. The recommended output rating of the power adapter is 5V at up to 3A.
The back part of the Galileo board has a socket called Peripheral Component Interconnect Express. It is commonly used to connect the WiFi cards, which helps to give wireless access.
Top 10 Features of Intel Galileo
Operating Systems: It supports different operating systems like Linux, Windows 7, Windows 8 and Mac OS.
Programming Language: It runs an open source firmware based on C programming and can work with any programming language that supports .586 extensions for x86 processors.
Two methods to Reset: There are basically two options to Reset the Intel Galileo Board. One way is by using Reset button and the other is the Reboot button.
MicroSD: It uses 32 Giga Byte SD cards.
Compatibility: Intel Galileo is compatible with Arduino IDE.
Ethernet and Shield Compatibility: The development board is compatible with Adruino UNO shields and Ethernet.
Real Time Clock: Through Galileo’s on-board RTC (real time clock), you’ll be able to track time even when the board is powered off.
Physical Specifications: The Intel Galileo is 4.2 inch long and has a width of 2.8 inch. One can easily fix this board to a surface with the help of screw holes in it.
SPI/I2C Connectivity: Using Intel Galileo we can connect SPI or I2C components.
Serial Connectivity, USB Interface, Wireless Access are other best features of it.
Features of Quark Processor
The Quark SoC X1000 processor is the central part of the Intel Galileo board. This processor uses the x86 architecture and is of 32 bit. The major advantages of using this x86 architecture is that they are faster and power efficient compared to other well-known architectures.
