element14 starts selling Raspberry Pi's self-developed chip RP2040

Raspberry Pi's self-developed chip, once used to build the popular Raspberry Pi Pico development board, is now sold as a standalone chip

Shanghai, China, June 1, 2021 – Farnell, the global distributor of electronic components and solutions under Avnet, announced that it will supply the RP2040 chip developed by Raspberry Pi. The chip combines high performance, low cost and ease of use, and is the core building block of the Raspberry Pi Pico, which costs only US$4.

The Raspberry Pi RP2040 microcontroller has a large on-chip memory and multiple I/O interface options, and its high performance can meet the needs of integer workloads, providing a highly flexible solution for a variety of microcontroller applications.

Any professional design engineer who is already proficient in using Raspberry Pi will be able to easily get started with Raspberry Pi Pico, and will be impressed by its high ease of use and super high cost performance.

Its main features include:

• Dual-core ARM Cortex-M0+ processor running at 133 MHz

• 264KB on-chip SRAM

• 30 multi-function GPIO pins

• Dedicated hardware for common peripherals and programmable I/O subsystem to support expansion peripherals

• Quad-channel ADC with internal temperature sensor

• USB 1.1 port with host and device support

Lee Turner, Global Semiconductor and SBC Business Director at Farnell and element14, said: “We are delighted that Raspberry Pi has chosen to sell this chip as a standalone component. The RP2040 is the basis for the hugely popular Raspberry Pi Pico, which is set to transform the microcontroller market in the same way that the original Raspberry Pi board did for SBCs. With the RP2040, customers can choose to use the Raspberry Pi Pico at the design stage and then switch to the RP2040 at the production stage, which provides design engineers with great flexibility and opportunities.”

element14 is the Raspberry Pi Foundation's longest-standing distributor partner, with sales of more than 15 million Raspberry Pi development boards. element14 now stocks a full range of Raspberry Pi single-board computers, including the latest Raspberry Pi Pico, to support users in building devices for home, professional, educational or commercial applications. In addition, customers can also receive technical support services 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, and free access to useful online resources on the element14 website and engineering and maker community element14 community.

The Raspberry Pi RP 2040 will be available from 1 June from Farnell (EMEA), Newark (North America) and element14 (APAC).