Raspberry Pi Category - CNX Software

April 2, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

P42 Pico2 M.2 – A Raspberry Pi RP2350 board in M.2 form factor

The P42 Pico2 M.2 may look like an M.2 module, but it’s actually a Raspberry Pi RP2350 development board in M.2 2230 form factor whose edge connector exposes USB, UART, I2C, and control I/Os. The board ships with a 2MB SPI flash and complies with voltage levels defined by the M.2 specification, with some of the interfaces running on 1.8 V. The SWD interface, +3.3 V, GND, and 16 IOs are accessible on castellated pins, and there’s also a QWIIC connector for I2C modules, but it’s not populated by default. The board also comes with a microSD card slot on the bottom and the usual Reset and BOOT buttons. P42 Pico M.2 specifications: SoC – Raspberry Pi RP2350A CPU Dual-core Arm Cortex-M33 @ 150 MHz with Arm Trustzone, Secure boot OR Dual-core RISC-V Hazard3 @ 150 MHz Up to two cores can be used in any combination Memory – 520 […]

March 24, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

SparkFun IoT RedBoard – Raspberry Pi RP2350 or ESP32 WiFi & Bluetooth boards with Arduino UNO R4 form factor

SparkFun has just launched the “IoT RedBoard – RP2350” and “IoT RedBoard – ESP32” boards with Arduino UNO R4 form factor based on respectively Raspberry Pi RP2350B + RM2 wireless module and ESP32-WROOM-32E WiFi and Bluetooth module. Both boards feature Arduino UNO headers and a Qwiic connector for expansion, a microSD card for storage, battery support, USB and DC jack power input, plus a few buttons and LEDs. The RP2350 board also adds an HSTX connector mainly useful for controlling HDMI or SPI displays. Sparkfun IoT RedBoard specifications: MCU sub-system and wireless RP2350 model MCU – Raspberry Pi RP2350B CPU Dual-core Arm Cortex-M33 @ 150 MHz with Arm Trust zone, Secure boot Dual-core RISC-V Hazard3 @ 150 MHz Up to two cores can be used at any given time Memory – 520 KB on-chip SRAM Memory – 8MB PSRAM Storage – 16MB Flash Wireless module – Raspberry Pi RM2 2.4 […]

March 18, 2025March 19, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

You can now buy Raspberry Pi RP2350 MCU for 80 cents and up, RP2354A and RP2354B variants coming soon

The Raspberry Pi RP2350 dual-core Cortex-M33/RISC-V MCU was first unveiled along with the Raspberry Pi Pico 2 in August 2024. Since then we have covered many Raspberry Pi RP2350 news and boards, but the microcontroller was hard to source for hobbyist and low-volume projects, which partially explains why companies like NextPCB had promotions offering free PCBA prototyping services for RP2350 designs. The good news is that Raspberry Pi has just announced general availability for the RP2350 microcontrollers starting at $0.80 per unit for the RP2350A in 3,400-piece reels, or $1.1 in single quantity, so anybody can buy the MCUs from their favorite distributor. The British company also announced the RP2354A and RP2354B variants with 2MB of stacked flash memory would soon be available to select partners and mass production will ramp up later this year. Here’s the current official pricing information for the RP2040 and RP2350 microcontrollers. Users can simply […]

March 14, 2025March 13, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

PicoCalc Kit is a Raspberry Pi Pico handheld terminal with a backlit STM32 QWERTY keyboard

ClockworkPi has made several Linux handheld terminals over the years such as the GameShell or DevTerm, but the PicoCalc Kit is quite different since it relies on the Raspberry Pi Pico board plus an STM32 microcontroller to handle its built-in keyboard. The PicoCalc Kit is based on the ClockworkPi v2.0 mainboard that takes an RP2040-based Pi Pico H board, connects to a 4-inch IPS display with 320×320 resolution and stereo speakers, integrates a backlit QWERTY keyboard, and ships with a 32GB SD card with an optimized BASIC firmware. PicoCalc Kit specifications: ClockworkPi v2.0 mainboard Compatible boards – Headers for Raspberry Pi Pico H/WH, and Raspberry Pi Pico 2 / 2W MCU – STM32 for keyboard and backlight programmable with the Arduino IDE or STM32 official development tools Storage – SD card slot Display – Screen connector (SPI) Audio 2x speaker connectors 3.5mm audio jack 67-key QWERTY keyboard (I2C) Expansion Connector […]

March 10, 2025March 9, 2025 by Debashis Das - No Comments

Adafruit Metro RP2350 development board follows Arduino UNO form factor, features HSTX DVI output

The Adafruit Metro RP2350 is a Raspberry Pi RP2350 development board that closely follows the Arduino UNO form factor for compatibility with existing Arduino shields. Key features include 37 GPIOs, a microSD card slot, a 5V buck converter (6–17V input), an onboard RGB NeoPixel, a Stemma QT port for I2C peripherals, a 22-pin HSTX port for DVI video output, and a USB Type-C port for power and data. It also provides a Pico Probe debug port, an RX/TX switch for UART flexibility, and a UF2 bootloader for easy firmware updates. Target applications include IoT projects, embedded system development, hardware prototyping, and educational purposes. Adafruit Metro RP2350 specifications SoC – Raspberry Pi RP2350 CPU Dual-core Arm Cortex-M33 @ 150 MHz with Arm Trust zone, Secure boot Dual-core RISC-V Hazard3 @ 150 MHz Up to two cores can be used at any given time Memory – 520 KB on-chip SRAM Security 8KB of […]

March 6, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Zant – An open-source Zig SDK for neural network deployment on microcontrollers

Zant neural network deployment microcontrollers

Zant is an open-source, cross-platform SDK written in Zig and designed to simplify deploying Neural Networks (NN) on microcontrollers. It comprises a suite of tools to import, optimize, and deploy NNs to low-end hardware. The developers behind the project developed Zant (formerly known as Zig-ant) after noticing many microcontrollers lacked robust deep learning libraries, and made sure it would be on various platforms such as ARM Cortex-M or RISC-V microcontrollers, or even x86 targets. Contrary to platforms like Edge Impulse that focus on network creation, Zant is about deployment and outputs a static, highly optimized library ready to be integrated into any existing work stack. Zant highlights: Optimized Performance – Supports quantization, pruning, and hardware acceleration techniques such as SIMD and GPU offloading. Low memory footprint – Zant employs memory pooling, static allocation, and buffer optimization to work on resources-constrained targets. Ease of Integration: With a modular design, clear APIs, […]

February 26, 2025February 26, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

TouchEye dual round touch display module features Raspberry Pi RP2040 or ESP32-S3 MCU (Crowdfunding)

TouchEye ESP32-S3 or RP2040 dual touch display board

Last December, Debashis wrote about the Waveshare Double Eye LCD module comprised of two round displays that can be useful for robotics or art projects since they can be made to look like googly eyes. The module is designed to be connected to a host MCU via an SPI interface. The TouchEye looks similar but offers larger 1.28-inch round displays (instead of 0.71-inch), and also adds a touch function. Instead of being connected to a host MCU via SPI like the Waveshare model, the TouchEye dual touch display module is a complete board with an onboard MCU that can be either a Raspberry Pi RP2040 or an Espressif ESP32-S3 that also offers WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity. Both boards also feature a USB-C port for power and programming, a microSD card slot, a GPIO breakout connector, and programmable buttons. TouchEye module specifications: MCU (one or the other) Raspberry Pi RP2040 dual-core […]

February 20, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Raspberry Pi Pico SDK 2.1.1 release adds 200MHz clock option for RP2040, various Waveshare boards, new code samples

The Raspberry Pi Pico SDK 2.1.1 has just been released with official 200 MHz clock support for the Raspberry Pi RP2040 MCU, several new boards mostly from Waveshare, but also one from Sparkfun, as well as new code samples, and other small changes. Raspberry Pi RP2040 gets official 200 MHz clock support When the Raspberry Pi RP2040 was first released along with Raspberry Pi Pico in 2021, we were told the default frequency was 48 MHz, but the microcontroller could also run up to 133 MHz. Eventually, I think the Cortex-M0+ cores were clocked at 125 MHz by default, although some projects (e.g. PicoDVI) would boost the frequency up to 252 MHz. Frequencies higher than 133 Mhz were not officially supported so far, but the Pico SDK 2.1.1 changes that since the Raspberry Pi RP2040 has now been certified to run at a system clock of 200MHz when using a […]