Show me the chips!

So there's this Raspberry Pi Pico thing...

Got one sitting on my desk.  Haven't started playing with it yet.  It actually looks promising for some future stuff, and at $4 for the little board, not exactly priced out of range.

But!

It takes up a bunch of space.  OK for one-offs and proof-of-concepts, but that RP2040 chip seems like something I might want to put into nice compact designs of my own.

There are multiple third-party boards using the RP2040, but so far I don't see anyone offering to sell me the chips.  Which, obviously, those third parties are getting from somewhere.  It's a QFN, so no problem with layout nor assembly, unlike nasty fine-pitch BGA packages.  No reason I shouldn't be able to buy the chips and install them directly on boards of my own design, right?

... While I'd happily pay $4 for the bare chip in modest quantities, I really have no desire to buy the $4 boards and unsolder the chips.  Which, come to think of it, was how one procured prototyping quantities of SDRAM chips circa 2004: buy new DIMMs and salvage the chips.

Afterthought:  I'd even pay a little more for chips rated for the full -40 to +85°C industrial temperature range.  Automotive-temp would be even better.

Comments

[Philip Ngai]

It's a custom chip, you'll probably need to buy it from the Raspberry Pi Foundation.

For now, they say: Volume customers will be able to buy pre-reeled Pico units.

https://www.raspberrypi.org/app/uploads/2021/01/Raspberry-Pi-Pico-reel-800x533.jpg

FAQs
Are you planning to make RP2040 available to customers?

We hope to make RP2040 broadly available in the second quarter of 2021.

[Eric Wilner]

Ah!

Reeled Pico units wouldn't do me any good; a Pico occupies several times my space budget for an MCU.

But, if the chips are going to be generally available later this year, I guess all's well; it'll be at least a couple of months before I can get much evaluation done, and the Pico is an acceptable platform for doing the evaluation.