Datasheet: Tiny Embedded Boards

Deliver Power, Performance, and Versatility in Meager Square Millimeters

- Tom Murphy

A funny thing happened when Raspberry Pi launched the successor to its famous RP2040-based Pico board in August of this year. One of the company's bloggers reported that the Raspberry Pi Pico 2 with the RP2350 MCU has twice the performance of its predecessor and includes many of the features it originally intended to deliver with the RP2040. On the previous launch, it either couldn't find the real estate to include essential features such as security, or the silicon didn't exist with the right power/ performance/cost metrics to offer the full spectrum of critical features.

The RP2040 is legendary despite any perceived shortcomings. Still, Moore's Law has seemingly caught the wave of the tiny, embedded boards, and the RP2350 has plenty of processing horsepower, memory, and I/O resources packed into a 21mm-x-51mm board. Although many projects featuring the RP2040 have been documented on Circuit Cellar's pages, including this edition, one can only imagine what projects the RP Pico 2 might inspire with a more complete allotment of computing resources.