Raspberry Pi Pico: A $4 Microcontroller with Big Potential

The first official Raspberry Pi microcontroller.
Ash Ash (362)
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Exciting news for micro-tinkerers! Raspberry Pi has officially launched their first microcontroller product called the Raspberry Pi Pico. This is the latest product to release following the Raspberry Pi 400 launch just last November.

Already many of the best manufacturers are making cool stuff for the Pico, like Pimoroni's new line of Pico accessories.

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Raspberry Pi Pico
Raspberry Pi Foundation

This new board measures in at just 2" x .8" (51 x 21mm) and features the new RP2040 chip developed by the Raspberry Pi Foundation. It carries a $4 price tag and is already available to purchase through approved vendors.

The full specs are detailed on the official Raspberry Pi website but here are a few highlights. The chip features:

  • A Dual-core Arm Cortex-M0+ processor with a base speed of 133MHz
  • 264KB of memory
  • 30 GPIO pins that can be used for a wide variety of microelectronic applications. There are pins dedicated to analog input, two UARTs, two SPI controllers, and a couple of I2C controllers.
  • 16 PWM channels
  • An LED is on top of the module as well as a button used for enabling USB mass-storage boot mode.
Raspberry Pi RP2040 Chip
Raspberry Pi Foundation

The Pico can be programmed easily using a Windows, Mac, or Linux machine. Users can take advantage of MicroPython or use the C SDK provided by the Raspberry Pi team. You'll find plenty of instructions, tutorials, and more on the official website. It's obvious the team has been preparing for this launch well in advance and we definitely appreciate all the documentation we can get when playing with new hardware.

Check out the official Raspberry Pi blog for the full rundown of what to expect from this teeny new addition to the Raspberry Pi lineup.

Get your Pico the litter.
Ash Ash (362)
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The team at Pimoroni is at it again with an impressive lineup of accessories for the new Raspberry Pi Pico board. There are plenty of goodies to choose from audio port add-ons to gaming handhelds.