Also known as: SBC
A single-board computer (SBC) is a complete computer built on one small circuit board — CPU, memory, storage, and ports — capable of running a full operating system, usually Linux.1
Overview
An SBC sits between a personal computer and a microcontroller. Unlike a microcontroller, it runs a real OS and ordinary languages and tools; unlike a sealed PC or phone, it exposes GPIO pins that let your code talk directly to electronics. That combination — a familiar Linux environment plus direct hardware access — is what makes SBCs so widely used for tinkering, prototyping, and embedding.
Most are credit-card sized and draw only a few watts, so they can run continuously without a fan or a meaningful power bill and fit inside small enclosures. Nearly all are built around an ARM system-on-a-chip that packs the CPU, GPU, and I/O onto one die, with RAM, storage (a microSD card, eMMC, or increasingly NVMe), and the ports all soldered to the single board.
SBC vs its neighbours
| Microcontroller | Single-board computer | Personal computer | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Runs an OS | No, bare firmware | Yes, full Linux | Yes, full OS |
| GPIO pins | Yes | Yes | No (sealed) |
| Typical power | Milliwatts | A few watts | Tens–hundreds of watts |
| Multitasking | Very limited | Yes | Yes |
| Best at | Tight real-time control | Embedded, always-on jobs | Heavy general compute |
Where it fits
The category is broad: the Raspberry Pi is the best-known general-purpose board, the NVIDIA Jetson adds a GPU for edge AI, and the BeagleBone emphasises real-time I/O. Their low power and small size make them well suited to always-on, embedded, and field roles. For GopherTrunk this is a genuine fit rather than a stretch: a Raspberry Pi or similar board by the antenna can run the software as a small, low-power headless SDR capture-and-decode node, and several such nodes can be spread across sites to feed one collector.
Sources
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Single-board computer — Wikipedia, on the definition and scope of SBCs. ↩