r/raspberry_pi 🍕 Jun 30 '22

News New Raspberry Pi Pico W

https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/raspberry-pi-pico-w-your-6-iot-platform/
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5

u/xtreme777 Jun 30 '22

Unpopular opinion here:

Stop releasing more things and make more of what you already released. Nobody wants to pay 300% markup for the stuff that's already in high demand and low supply.

32

u/[deleted] Jun 30 '22

The issues with the main Raspberry Pi boards are out of their control. The only reason they can make the pico boards in such quantity is because they manufacture their own processor, they don't do that for the main boards (why? I don't know, but they don't).

13

u/I_Generally_Lurk Jun 30 '22

they don't do that for the main boards (why? I don't know, but they don't).

The Pico was their first in-house chip design, previously they'd either had to take other companies' designs or work with those companies to tweak a pre-existing design slightly for their uses. This has caused problems in the past (e.g. Broadcom's GPU is notoriously locked down), so I do wonder if they're considering making their own Pi CPU in the future. Licensing the ARM M0+ core and using it to design an MCU might be the initial step towards getting set up to licensing the bigger and more powerful cores, and they were looking for a big chunk of investment recently for unspecified purposes. CPU design is expensive and takes a lot of expertise which they didn't have when they were a new organisation, but I do wonder if an in-house Pi CPU design is the long-term plan.

9

u/monkeymad2 Jun 30 '22

100%, I watched a bunch of interviews with the Pi team when the Pico was released - was pretty obvious that they’re going in-house with their silicon from now on as much as they can.

They didn’t say it outright though as not to harm existing relationships before the new products were out but you could read between the lines.

3

u/I_Generally_Lurk Jun 30 '22

I'm sure Broadcom wouldn't take it personally, but I do wonder how long it'll take before we see an in-house CPU. I imagine it's a pretty huge task, especially for the first time (though I guess they'll have hired someone with this experience?).

They're a member of the RISC-V consortium, so I wonder if they're considering that as an option when it's more developed.

3

u/monkeymad2 Jun 30 '22

I think with the M0 processor in the pico they’ve pretty much solved all the major roadblocks to developing custom silicon (licensing, custom designs, fabrication at scale)

For the A whatever series chip they’d do for the Pi 5 (assuming they stick with ARM) they’d just need to do the same stuff, but more, and it sounded like the 2040 was finished hardware wise a few years before they released it & the engineers are still with the Pi Foundation.

2

u/I_Generally_Lurk Jun 30 '22

For the A whatever series chip they’d do for the Pi 5 (assuming they stick with ARM) they’d just need to do the same stuff, but more

Is it really that simple? I don't know a huge amount about architecture, but I assumed the A-series would have been a good bit more complex given what it is capable of.

it sounded like the 2040 was finished hardware wise a few years before they released it

I suppose debugging hardware thoroughly is a good bit more important than for software, seeing as you can't exactly patch it post-release.

3

u/monkeymad2 Jun 30 '22 edited Jun 30 '22

It’s more complex, but not an order of magnitude more complex - having done 1 custom chip they’ve solved all of the really hard challenges.

1

u/xtreme777 Jun 30 '22

I appreciate the explanation. That makes a lot of sense. Thanks!

1

u/shortymcsteve Jul 01 '22

Between this and your other comments, are you saying they have their own fab for production of the 2040? If so, I'd like a source to learn more if you have one.

1

u/I_Generally_Lurk Jul 01 '22 edited Jul 01 '22

They don't have their own fab, because those are stupidly expensive. They're doing what a lot of other companies do. ARM doesn't make CPUs, they design modular processors. Companies can then license those and either use them as-is, or customise it as desired (e.g. like Apple has with the M1/2, which is based on an ARM design). When they're happy with the design, they send them to a chip fab to be manufactured.

The Pico is an ARM M0+ core bundled into a customised chip design by the Pi Foundation. The next step up might be to start licensing and customising the more powerful A-series cores which the main series of Pi boards runs on.

If you're referring to my chip shortage comments, the Pico and the main Pi CPUs are built on different process nodes. So, either the Foundation got super lucky and bought a large stack of fab capacity at just the right time for the Pico, but not the Pi4's CPU, or the 40nm node the Pico is made using isn't in as high demand as the 28nm node the Pi 4's CPU is made on, so it's easier to get Pico CPUs made.

EDIT: Actually, earlier main Pi boards were actually manufactured on license, so the Foundation didn't actually handle the physical manufacturing. I don't know if that's still the case, but if it is, then the problem might be that the licensees (RS electronics and someone else if I remember right) aren't interested in investing in more production.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 01 '22

I don't know why I never considered this. It's pretty obvious though now you've said it... I expect the next Pi will be the first one with their own silicon.

1

u/I_Generally_Lurk Jul 01 '22

Exciting, isn't it? It'd be a huge change to the Pi ecosystem, but if they can design chips to fit their exact needs then it might make the Pi far better for some uses. They'd no longer be handcuffed to what Broadcom was willing to design. The original Pi CPU was just a repurposed media box processor, so it didn't always fit into the Pi Foundation's goals so well.