Android Development Kit App

The Electropages Dev Kit App keeps design engineers up to date with the latest development kits from manufacturers and distributors. Learn more about the latest Development kits, Development tools, Evaluation kits and related news from the industry's leading manufacturers and distributors.

Our editors are constantly reporting on and reviewing development and embedded tools.

Navigating the Dev Kit maze

Engineers are faced with a incredibly diverse number of Dev Kits as most semiconductor companies, component suppliers and distribution companies have realised that by offering these they are not only helping the engineering design communities but for the manufacturers of components and systems it is also providing design opportunities that may well differentiate their products from rival offerings.

There are plenty of statistics that clearly indicate just how rapidly this market sector is expanding. Industry analysts ABI Research reckon the installed base of development kits will reach 21 million by the end of the decade.

So its not surprising that currently almost half of all electronics designs are facilitated via the use of development kits.

Riding the Dev Kit wave

But what are the prime factors that have created this enormous surge in the use of Dev Kits?

Engineers and the companies they work for all have some fundamental pressures that impact on their daily work. These include the pressure to meet time-to-market deadlines, end product price pressures, product reliability pressures and perhaps the biggest design pressure of all, the need to innovate.

Unsurprisingly Dev Kits are now seen as a pragmatic way of achieving all those goals.

Be different

As already mentioned product differentiation whereby a product design can be created that is sufficiently different and innovative compared to competitors existing designs is a prime requirement today.

Dev Kits undoubtedly assist with this although it must be remembered that such kits are widely available and are by nature open-sourced and will therefore be available to competitors. So added value is an essential part of providing Dev Kit support and is something that manufacturers are keenly aware of and will provide additional support services like application development, analysis methodology and also device management tools.

Community communication

Another aspect of Dev Kit usage is the way in which it encourages the establishment of engineering communities. These provide engineers forums in which they can research ideas and learn from each other’s experiences. The days when a data sheet would be all that was required have long gone.

Which one?

Ultimately engineers have a mind-boggling choice of Dev Kits. Whether it’s a member of the Arduino family, a Raspberry Pi or an Intel Galileo or one of the many thousands available.

Consequently informed comment via independent journalists is an unbiased way potential users and providers of Dev Kits can research the market. Which is precisely why the Electropages Dev Kit app was created.

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