Last year, the Raspberry Foundation also released a brand new version of the Raspberry PI PC (personal computer), and it is directly built into a small-sized keyboard. Now there is more good news for hackers and hardware developers. They just announced their first microcontroller-based product named Raspberry Pi Pico. This small device is priced at only US $4. Unbelievable price. Let us find out about Raspberry Pi Pico hardware specs and software support.
Many hobbyists and industrial applications or IoT use a Raspberry Pi with a microcontroller. A microcontroller is different than a microprocessor, which only contains a CPU. Raspberry Pi Pico includes an integrated processor, a small amount of memory, and other stuff for your application. From the blog post:
Today, we’re launching our first microcontroller-class product: Raspberry Pi Pico. Priced at just $4, it is built on RP2040, a brand-new chip developed right here at Raspberry Pi. Whether you’re looking for a standalone board for deep-embedded development or a companion to your Raspberry Pi computer, or you’re taking your first steps with a microcontroller, this is the board for you.
Raspberry Pi Pico hardware specs
- CPU – RP2040 microcontroller chip. Dual-core Arm Cortex-M0+ processor, flexible clock running up to 133 MHz
- SRAM – 264KB on-chip
- Form factor – 21 mm × 51 mm
- QSPI Flash – 2MB on-board
- Interfacing – 26 multifunction GPIO pins, including 3 analogue inputs
- 2 × UART, 2 × SPI controllers, 2 × I2C controllers, 16 × PWM channels
- 1 × USB 1.1 controller and PHY, with host and device support
- 8 × Programmable I/O (PIO) state machines for custom peripheral support
- Supported input power 1.8–5.5V DC
- Operating temperature – -20°C to +85°C
- Castellated module allows soldering direct to carrier boards
- Drag-and-drop programming using mass storage over USB
- Low-power sleep and dormant modes
- Accurate on-chip clock
- Temperature sensor
- Accelerated integer and floating-point libraries on-chip
Raspberry Pi Pico will remain in production until at least January 2028. You need to download and use Pico Python or C/C++ SDK to program and control this device. Detailed instructions are provided in the getting started guide. For power users, they are giving out a complete C SDK, a GCC-based toolchain, and Visual Studio Code integration too.
Raspberry Pi Pico hardware price
You can buy directly buy this tiny device by visiting this page and it priced at just $4, it is built on RP2040 chip.
Summing up
We can build a cool application with Raspberry Pi Pico. I can think of stuff like:
- Light and temperature sensing and controlling those devices
- Fire detection and building safety devices
- Remote controls
- Toys
- Embedded systems and more
The RPi got an excellent ecosystem, and if you don’t need wireless connectivity, this device is for you. It has tons of gpio. The VSCode environment is going to be a massive win for the developer. MicroPython is surprisingly awesome as compared to C, especially for new developers. What would you build with such a device?
