Raspberry Pi Pico Is a $4 Microcontroller with a Custom ARM Chip
Jan. 22, 2021Raspberry Pi is the go-to computer for school projects or other cool experiments. The Raspberry Foundation haslaunched4 generations of these tiny computers, with up to 8GB of RAM. There’s even acompact keyboardwith a Raspberry Pi baked inside. And now, the Raspberry Foundation has announced the Raspberry Pi Pico, the company’s first microcontroller.
Also, this board does not require a lot of power. The power supply chip on Raspberry Pi Pico supports input voltages from 1.8-5.5V. This means you can power the board using“a wide variety of sources, including two or three AA cells in series, or single lithium-ion cell,”as per theofficial blog post. You can get started with a breadboard design if you don’t want to solder down the components. Pico is programmable in MicroPython (python language for those looking to code for microcontrollers) and C/C++.
As for the price, Raspberry Pi Pico is also super affordable and costs just $4 (~Rs. 290) in the US. You can get one for free with the February issue of the HackSpace magazine.
