There are a number of mbed-enabled hardware boards available, all designed around the mbed HDK. They provide fast, flexible and low-risk and professional rapid prototyping solutions to jump-start your design.

The full list of mbed-enabled platforms with associated pinouts and firmware updates can be found on the Platforms database.

All include the HDK's built-in USB FLASH programming interface that is as simple as using a USB Flash Drive. Plug it in, drop on an ARM program binary, and it's up and running! It works on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux, meaning you can re-flash the microcontroller without needing drivers or a programming application. The program binary can be easily generated using the mbed Compiler, or alternatively using any other standard offline toolchain like Keil uVision, Code Red, Code Sourcery, GCC, or IAR.

There is also support for a virtual serial port using the same USB interface, enabling communication with a PC terminal, Labview, Matlab, and any other programming language that can communicate with a COM port.

Also included over the same USB connection is the new CMSIS-DAP debug interface, allowing connection to professional debug tools supporting step-debugging via the CMSIS-DAP interface with the same hardware.