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.
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.
Posted by: Philip Ngai | Thursday, 01 April 2021 at 17:36
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.
Posted by: Eric Wilner | Thursday, 01 April 2021 at 18:02