MicroZed is a low-cost development board based on the AMD Zynq 7000 adaptive SoC. Its unique design allows it to be used as both a stand-alone evaluation board for basic SoC experimentation, or combined with a carrier card as an embeddable system-on-module (SOM). MicroZed contains two I/O headers that provide connection to two I/O banks on the programmable logic (PL) side of the Zynq 7000 AP SoC device. In stand-alone mode, these 100 PL I/O are inactive. When plugged into a carrier card, the I/O are accessible in a manner defined by the carrier card design. Thus designers can start with MicroZed in stand-alone mode as a learning platform and then easily expand its functionality as a SOM through the addition of an off-the-shelf or custom designed carrier card. This combined stand-alone/SOM approach can quickly move a design idea from concept to production, making MicroZed the ideal platform for SoC based applications.