Selecting an MCU for your next project? Only looking at datasheets is no longer enough. Other important factors are well-written documentation, nicely organized software, and development tools. And when you start to look at development tools? Big, small, square, round, black, green, red, pin-out, features? There's a lot of factors to take into account when deciding what vendor to go with.

Our starter-kits (STKs) are so easy that you can pick them up and start coding within five minutes of opening the kits. But they do not stop there. They continue to grow with you as you take all the steps of development. Want a more professional IDE? No problem, all major IDEs are supported. Want to optimize the battery life of your product? No problem, all our STKs support Advanced Energy Monitoring (AEM) to accurately measure the energy consumption of your code. Want to create your own PCB? No problem, the STK doubles as an external debugger, allowing you even to use the same 30 dollar kit even for production programming, as we do in our production line.

So, if you want to try out our MCUs and development kits, get a kit from here and head over to mbed.com and check out the online IDE. Here you can get the first programs up running in a matter of minutes. Make sure to check out the example mbed_blinky_low_power to see why the EFM32 will give you 1000x the battery life of a competing MCU, when using mbed. Then, when you've gotten the feeling and are starting your proper design, download our Simplicity Studio and get all the software and supporting tools in one, easy package.

Not sure which kit to chose? Check out these videos for a run-down of the different chips and kits: