CPico RP2350 is another Raspberry Pi Pico 2 alternative with USB-C, 8MB flash, 2MB PSRAM, BConnect I2C & debug ports

iLabs CPico RP2350 is a Raspberry Pi Pico 2 alternative with the same form factor, still based on the Raspberry Pi RP2350 microcontroller but equipped with a USB-C port, 8MB flash, 2MB PSRAM, a Reset button, and Bconnect I2C and debug ports.

Apart from that, the CPico RP2350 retains the other features of the Raspberry Pi Pico 2 including the two 20-pin PGIO headers, and BOOT button. It joins other Raspberry Pi Pico 2 alternatives like the Waveshare RP2350-Plus adding battery support.

CPico RP2350 specifications:

SoC – Raspberry Pi RP2350
- CPU
  - Dual-core Arm Cortex-M33 @ 150 MHz with Arm Trustzone, Secure boot
  - Dual-core RISC-V Hazard3 @ 150 MHz
  - Up two cores can be used at any given time
- Memory – 520 KB on-chip SRAM
- Security
  - 8KB of anti-fuse OTP for key storage
  - Secure boot (Arm only)
  - SHA-256 acceleration
  - Hardware TRNG
  - Fast glitch detectors
- Package – QFN-60
Memory – 2 MP PSRAM
Storage – 8MB on-board QSPI flash
USB – USB Type-C 1.1 host/device connector for power and programming
Expansion
- 2x 20-pin headers with
  - 26x GPIO
  - 2x UART
  - 2x SPI controllers
  - 2x I2C controllers
  - 16x PWM channels
  - 4x ADC
  - 3x PIO blocks, 12x PIO (Programmable IO) state machines
- BConnect I2C connector
Debugging – BConnect CMSIS/DAP/UART debug support
Power Supply – 1.8 to 5.5V/3A DC via USB-C port
Dimensions – 51 x 21 mm

iLabs only provides the PDF schematics and says the CPico RP2350 board works with MicroPython, CircuitPython, Raspberry Pi Pico SDK, and Arduino IDE. So from a firmware perspective, it should be mostly the same as the Raspberry Pi Pico 2 except for the extra flash capacity, the 2MP PSRAM, and debugging capabilities.

If you want to make use of the latter you’d also need to get the BSWD iProbe with CMSIS/DAP compatibility and integrate with OpenOCD, GDB, and other popular IDEs.

Raspberry Pi RP2350 board with BConnect debug board — An earlier version of the CPico RP2350 connected to BSWD iProbe CMSIS-DAP board

iLabs’ CPico RP2350 board sells for $9.18 on the company’s online store, and the BSWD iProbe goes for $13.30.

Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)

Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.