Raspberry Pi Pico – Micro-controller for $ 4

Micro-controller Raspberry Pi Pico on HackSpace magazine (Raspberry Pi source)

The British Raspberry Pi Foundation, which develops the single-board computer (SBC) of the same name, has announced theRaspberry Pi Pico, A tiny and inexpensive microcontroller that uses the chipRP2040 The fund’s new one with a pair of ARM cores to power the Pico controller, offered at a particularly low price tag of only $ 4.

The Raspberry Pi fund is best known for the fund’s SBC computers, including the Raspberry Pi 4 Model B we also reviewed and the Raspberry Pi 400 “keyboard computer” based on it. These were “complete” computing solutions that allowed creators and amateurs to experiment with programming, electronics and more and even use them as a replacement for a dedicated computer or streamer, while the new microcontroller was used to perform more focused roles with support for programming languages ​​like C or MicroPython.

The new Pi Pico comes as the foundation’s first microcontroller to provide an alternative to competing products such as Arduino, reaching a minimum size of 21 × 51 mm and using the RP2040 chip designed by the Pi beam itself. The new chip Combines ARM + Cortex-M0 pair of 133MHz frequency along with 264KB SRAM and 2MB QSPI Flash storage, unimpressive technical specifications compared to the foundation’s SBC boards, but impressive compared to other microcontrollers.

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Although quite a few users will remember that the Pi Foundation already has a particularly cheap SBC board called the Raspberry Pi Zero available at an official price of $ 5, the Pi Zero plays a different role compared to the new Pi Pico, which is intended for specific purposes and not as a “computer” multifunctional. On the microcontroller you can find 30 pins of GPIO for general use, 4 of which are used as analog input, a pair of URATs, SPI and I2C controllers with 16 PWM channels, while the preparation of the microcontroller is easily done via a micro USB connection with UF2 support, Allows you to program the board by transferring a single file from your computer to a microcontroller.

Raspberry Pi Pico Microcontroller (Raspberry Pi Source)

The Raspberry Pi Pico is available for sale at a price of $ 4, when it can be purchased in Israel at an early sale for NIS 17.55 at Feitel.

While the main highlight of the new launch is the Pi Pico itself, the more interesting part is the new RP2040 chip from the Pi Foundation, which finds itself not only in the new microcontroller, but will be available in a variety of products from other manufacturers, such as the console -Pimoroni mobile from PicoSystem and more.

Pimoroni PicoSystem Portable Console (Raspberry Pi Source)