Link: ATmega32U4 Development Board

• This compact and elegant development board is built around the ATmega32U4 microcontroller, a popular choice among hobbyists and DIY enthusiasts. Known for its native USB support, this chip is especially favored by those who create custom keyboards or USB-based projects.

• Although it's an older chip with more powerful alternatives on the market, the ATmega32U4 remains widely used due to its strong software ecosystem. Many well-known board manufacturers still rely on it, which means there are plenty of tutorials, libraries, and community support available for users.

• The board features a modern USB-C connector, even though the chip only supports USB 2.0 and lacks Power Delivery (PD) capabilities. This design choice makes sense because USB-C offers better durability and a more reliable connection compared to older USB types.

• It includes three LEDs: a power LED (D1), a receive LED (D2), and a transmit LED (D3). These help monitor the board’s activity during operation.

• A 500 mA fuse is integrated directly on the power pin from the USB connector, providing essential circuit protection against overcurrent situations.

• The board has 2x13 pins, with two dedicated as power lines (5V and GND), one as a reset pin (RST), and the remaining 23 as general-purpose I/O (GPIO) pins. It also supports SPI, I2C, UART, timers, interrupts, analog inputs, and digital input/output functions.

• Its width is designed to fit perfectly into standard breadboards, covering the entire width from row A to J. However, when two breadboards are connected side by side, all the pins become easily accessible for prototyping.

• Before using the board for the first time, you need to burn a bootloader onto the chip using another Arduino board configured as an ISP programmer. Once done, you can program it via USB like any other Arduino-compatible device. Alternatively, you can bypass the bootloader and program the chip directly using an AVR programmer, which saves some flash memory space.