The Raspberry Pi Foundation has just released its first microcontroller board, and it costs less than a packed lunch. At $4, the Raspberry Pi Pico is an affordable dual-core microcontroller that takes the likes of the Arduino. While it can't run a full operating system, Pico can easily be programmed to control sensors, motors, and other electronics. “Whether you're looking for a standalone board for deep development or a companion to your Raspberry Pi computer, or just getting started with a microcontroller, this board is for you,” said James Adams, the Head. Operator on Raspberry Pi.
Raspberry Pi Silicone
In another first, Pico is powered by custom Raspberry Pi silicon, the RP2040 systems on a chip (SoC). The RP2040 features an Arm Cortex M0+ processor that can be designed to run up to 133Hz, along with 264K of SRAM and 2MB of onboard storage. Speaking to our friends at Tom's Hardware about their foray into making their own SoCs, Adams said: “We couldn't see a way to offer something differentiated in the microcontroller space using existing third-party silicon, so we decided to build our own. ”. They started working on it in 2016 and prepared the first iteration in 2018, which was then further refined and improved to become the final product that is now included in the Pico. Remember, though, that the Pico is a microcontroller and has a different use case than the Raspberry Pi or even the $5 Raspberry Pi Zero. You can buy the Pico from the Raspberry Pi store, and the device also comes with the latest issue. from HackSpace magazine, owned by the Raspberry Pi Foundation, which also includes various tutorials and guides to get oriented with the device. Via: Tom's Material