ELM11-Feather Board with 70 MHz MCU, Lua, and Hardware Overlay Support
Mar 21, 2026 — by Giorgio Mendoza 588 views
Brisbane Silicon has unveiled the ELM11-Feather, a Feather-compatible microcontroller board designed to run Lua natively for embedded applications. The board targets developers looking for a scriptable platform with closer integration between software and configurable hardware.
The system is built around a microcontroller operating at up to 70 MHz and includes 1 MB of RAM. Programs are stored in internal flash memory, with the architecture supporting configurable hardware elements through a hardware overlay mechanism that defines CPU behavior, timers, and peripheral routing.
— ADVERTISEMENT —
ELM11-Feather dimensions
The board follows the standard Feather form factor, enabling compatibility with existing FeatherWing expansion boards. It supports battery-powered operation through an onboard LiPo charging circuit and includes a 3.3 V regulator capable of delivering up to 500 mA peak current.
A total of 20 general-purpose I/O pins are available, each supporting multiple interfaces including GPIO, PWM, UART, SPI, and I2C depending on configuration. Most pins provide full functionality, although some SPI-related limitations apply to specific pins.
Additional onboard components include five user-programmable LEDs, a user pushbutton, a reset button, and a hardware watchdog.
ELM11-Feather hardware overlay design flow diagram
The firmware executes Lua programs either interactively through a REPL or from scripts stored in flash memory, with a separate REPL instance available per CPU core. The runtime supports standard digital interfaces including GPIO, PWM, UART, SPI, and I2C, along with interrupt handling, timers, and watchdog functionality.
ELM11-Feather pinout
The hardware overlay system allows developers to customize low-level hardware functionality, including CPU parameters, timers, interrupt configuration, I/O buses, and communication interfaces. Custom hardware modules can be integrated into the overlay and exposed directly to the Lua scripting layer.
ELM11-Feather top & bottom views
Further Information
The ELM11-Feather is expected to launch on Crowd Supply in early May 2026 and is priced at approximately $19.95 per unit, according to Brisbane Silicon.
They never mention the microcontroller they use, which made me curios. Going by the product pictures the board is centered around a Gowin GW1NR-LV9 FPGA. There is also a Buffalo 702 for Bluetooth onboard?
The combination of a FPGA with defined templates on a compact well established form factor sounds intriguing.