There are two broad categories of development board that you can purchase.
Evaluation boards (also known as starter kits) for are available from various Arm partners to support their devices. They are used for early software development, prototyping, and demonstration. They come in a wide variety of feature sets and price points. They are typically used stand-alone as provided.
Other boards, often referred to as edge computing boards or modules, or as single board computers (SBCs), can be directly used in a final product. These boards typically have a small form factor so as to be easily designed into commercial products. Debug interfaces, and other features beneficial for early software may not be available.
Embedded projects often use Linux as the default operating system, customized for the target hardware by the Yocto Project . Both evaluation boards and SBCs are usually provided with an appropriate bootloader and Linux distribution pre-programmed. Boards may also be used for bare-metal or RTOS software.
Arm SystemReady is a program that certifies that systems meet the SystemReady standards, giving confidence that operating systems (OS) and subsequent layers of software just work.
You can find a full list of SystemReady IR and SystemReady ES Certified Systems on the Arm website.
Please add your favorite board sources to the list.
NXP i.MX boards are used in a variety of applications.
NVIDIA Jetson Developer Kits are good for AI projects.
Raspberry Pi provides a range of boards based on Arm Cortex-A and Cortex-M processors. The Raspberry Pi 4 is popular for Linux projects. Alternatives to the Raspberry Pi are also available, such as the Khadas Edge2 , the Orange Pi 5 and the Rock5 SBC.
96boards provides information about development boards used across a variety of application types.
Other board providers include Phytec and Congatec .
Cortex-R boards are less common in the public domain, but are available to support devices from Texas Instruments or Renesas among others.