Raspberry Pi Foundation Launches $4 Microcontroller With Custom Chip

'Meet the Raspberry Pi Pico, a tiny little microcontroller that lets you build hardware projects with some code running on the microcontroller. Even more interesting, the Raspberry Pi Foundation is using its own RP2040 chip, which means that the foundation is now making its own silicon. From a report: If you're not familiar with microcontrollers, those devices let you control other parts or other devices. You might think that you can already do this kind of stuff with a regular Raspberry Pi. But microcontrollers are specifically designed to interact with other things. They're cheap, they're small and they draw very little power. You can start developing your project with a breadboard to avoid soldering. You can pair it with a small battery and it can run for weeks or even months. Unlike computers, microcontrollers don't run traditional operating systems. Your code runs directly on the chip. Like other microcontrollers, the Raspberry Pi Pico has dozens of input and output pins on the sides of the device. Those pins are important as they act as the interface with other components. For instance, you can make your microcontroller interact with an LED light, get data from various sensors, show some information on a display, etc. The Raspberry Pi Pico uses the RP2040 chip. It has a dual-core Arm processor (running at 133MHz), 264KB of RAM, 26 GPIO pins including 3 analog inputs, a micro-USB port and a temperature sensor. It doesn't come with Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. And it costs $4.' -- source: https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/21/01/21/1258214 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 577-5304 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

On Fri, 22 Jan 2021 12:12:51 +1300, Peter Reutemann quoted:
'Even more interesting, the Raspberry Pi Foundation is using its own RP2040 chip, which means that the foundation is now making its own silicon.'
Or more correctly, it has contracted with a fab company like TSMC or whomever to make the chips. Which is something anybody can do, for only a tiny fraction of what it costs to set up your own chip fab. ;)

On Fri, 22 Jan 2021 12:12:51 +1300, Peter Reutemann quoted:
'Meet the Raspberry Pi Pico, a tiny little microcontroller that lets you build hardware projects with some code running on the microcontroller.'
Here <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUCgYXF01Do> is a review, some comparisons with other products, and discussion of its use in a project to keep the presenter’s newborn baby daughter’s bedroom at a comfortable temperature.

On Fri, 22 Jan 2021 12:12:51 +1300, Peter Reutemann quoted:
'Meet the Raspberry Pi Pico, a tiny little microcontroller that lets you build hardware projects with some code running on the microcontroller.'
Note that “Pi Pico” is the name of the board, the microcontroller chip itself being the “RP2040” (“RP” standing for “Raspberry Pi”, of course). Here <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmEyrOTYYCA> is a review of another board using that same microcontroller. It’s even smaller than the Pi Pico -- about the size of a UK postage stamp. Of course the downside is having fewer connector pins, but for some applications that may be fine.

On Fri, 22 Jan 2021 12:12:51 +1300, Peter Reutemann quoted:
'Meet the Raspberry Pi Pico, a tiny little microcontroller that lets you build hardware projects with some code running on the microcontroller.'
Came across this <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaPJmCgseQw> very short demo of the π Pico running a BBC Micro emulator. Notice the board has no actual video output, so how is the video getting to the monitor? It’s programming the PIO controllers built into the RP2040 chip to generate the video signal in real time via the GPIO pins!
participants (2)
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Lawrence D'Oliveiro
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Peter Reutemann