Buy 'em by the punnet: Raspberry Pi offers RP2040 chips in bulk
(2022/01/17)
- Reference: 1642440491
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2022/01/17/raspberries_pi_direct_launch/
- Source link:
If you only need the smallest of Raspberry Pi chips, but you need a lot of them, you can now buy the gang's RP2040 [1]microcontrollers directly from the farm supplier in lots of 500 or 3,400.
Because the Raspberry Pi range is so cheap, people use lots of them – even in places where a complete Linux computer is arguably overkill. That's probably why, this time last year, the Raspberry Pi Foundation [2]launched the Raspberry Pi Pico , a $4 device based around the RP2040 microcontroller – its first in-house CPU design.
The end-user version of the Pi Pico is a tiny PCB containing the RP2040 system-on-a-chip (SoC) and 2 MB of flash memory. (The board is a hair over 2×5cm, so only slightly bigger than an old-style DIP chip such as a Z80.) The RP2040 is still an ARM, but a tiny one: a dual-core 133 MHz Cortex M0+, plus 264 kB of RAM.
[3]
By June last year it was [4]offering the bare SoCs for $1 a unit, and now, you can buy them directly, via [5]Raspberry Pi Direct . If you buy a reel of 500, the chips cost $0.80 each, and if you buy reels of 3400, the price falls to $0.70 a pop.
[6]Raspberry Pi Foundation moves into microcontrollers with the $4 Pi Pico using homegrown silicon
[7]New batch of AstroPis relieve Ed and Izzy of duty on board the International Space Station
[8]DIY Sinclair clones: Left it too late to back the Next? Build your own instead
[9]Online retailers delaying sales of Raspberry Pi 4 model until 2023, thanks to a few good chips getting scarce
These are bare chips containing processor and RAM. For them to boot up and do anything, you'll also have to supply some external flash memory. As founder Eben Upton told us last year, "a 10-20c external QSPI Flash is required to store program code."
That's a [10]Quad-SPI flash memory chip with 1-2Mbit of serial flash, with the RP2040 supporting up to 16MB. It also supports XIP, meaning "Execute in Place" – code can run directly in Flash and doesn't have to be loaded into RAM to run.
[11]
Some analysts are [12]predicting that chip shortages will get somewhat better by the middle of the year and lift next year, but until then, the Raspberry Pi Foundation could do very well out of the tiniest Pi. ®
Get our [13]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/raspberry-pi-direct-buy-rp2040-in-bulk-from-just-0-70/
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2021/01/21/pi_pico/
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YeX1FWbaDR4WV8zmOYuDrQAAAIo&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2021/06/01/rp2040/
[5] https://direct.raspberrypi.com/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2021/01/21/pi_pico/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2022/01/07/new_astropis_iss/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2022/01/06/diy_sinclair_clones/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2021/12/20/raspberry_pi_delay/
[10] https://embeddedinventor.com/quad-spi-everything-you-need-to-know/
[11] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YeX1FWbaDR4WV8zmOYuDrQAAAIo&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2022/01/10/chip_growth_this_year/
[13] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Because the Raspberry Pi range is so cheap, people use lots of them – even in places where a complete Linux computer is arguably overkill. That's probably why, this time last year, the Raspberry Pi Foundation [2]launched the Raspberry Pi Pico , a $4 device based around the RP2040 microcontroller – its first in-house CPU design.
The end-user version of the Pi Pico is a tiny PCB containing the RP2040 system-on-a-chip (SoC) and 2 MB of flash memory. (The board is a hair over 2×5cm, so only slightly bigger than an old-style DIP chip such as a Z80.) The RP2040 is still an ARM, but a tiny one: a dual-core 133 MHz Cortex M0+, plus 264 kB of RAM.
[3]
By June last year it was [4]offering the bare SoCs for $1 a unit, and now, you can buy them directly, via [5]Raspberry Pi Direct . If you buy a reel of 500, the chips cost $0.80 each, and if you buy reels of 3400, the price falls to $0.70 a pop.
[6]Raspberry Pi Foundation moves into microcontrollers with the $4 Pi Pico using homegrown silicon
[7]New batch of AstroPis relieve Ed and Izzy of duty on board the International Space Station
[8]DIY Sinclair clones: Left it too late to back the Next? Build your own instead
[9]Online retailers delaying sales of Raspberry Pi 4 model until 2023, thanks to a few good chips getting scarce
These are bare chips containing processor and RAM. For them to boot up and do anything, you'll also have to supply some external flash memory. As founder Eben Upton told us last year, "a 10-20c external QSPI Flash is required to store program code."
That's a [10]Quad-SPI flash memory chip with 1-2Mbit of serial flash, with the RP2040 supporting up to 16MB. It also supports XIP, meaning "Execute in Place" – code can run directly in Flash and doesn't have to be loaded into RAM to run.
[11]
Some analysts are [12]predicting that chip shortages will get somewhat better by the middle of the year and lift next year, but until then, the Raspberry Pi Foundation could do very well out of the tiniest Pi. ®
Get our [13]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/raspberry-pi-direct-buy-rp2040-in-bulk-from-just-0-70/
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2021/01/21/pi_pico/
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YeX1FWbaDR4WV8zmOYuDrQAAAIo&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2021/06/01/rp2040/
[5] https://direct.raspberrypi.com/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2021/01/21/pi_pico/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2022/01/07/new_astropis_iss/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2022/01/06/diy_sinclair_clones/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2021/12/20/raspberry_pi_delay/
[10] https://embeddedinventor.com/quad-spi-everything-you-need-to-know/
[11] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YeX1FWbaDR4WV8zmOYuDrQAAAIo&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2022/01/10/chip_growth_this_year/
[13] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Brilliant little devices.
Mike 16
Never seen _much_ illumination from processor chips, but I do recall the days when, overwhelmed by the task of manually programming many EPROMs in a row of an evening, I occasionally plugged one into the low insertion force socket and pressed START. Chips inserted wrong end up (it happens) would emit a small amount of light to alert me to my mistake.
Re: Brilliant little devices.
Yet Another Anonymous coward
That's what the little glass window is for
Re: Brilliant little devices.
Martin an gof
Quartz, isn't it?
M.
I assumed they were doing this already...
Martin an gof
...as companies such as [1]Adafruit and [2]Pimoroni have been selling various units based on the RP2040 for a while now - and indeed individual chips. What's new seems to be the online "shop", presumably as an easier way for less well-established players to get in on the act?
M.
[1] https://www.adafruit.com/product/4884
[2] https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/tiny-2040?variant=39560012300371
Brilliant little devices.
Have one doing lighting systems...