Raspberry Pie Pico W Microcontroller With Wi-Fi Chip Launched: All Details

Raspberry Pie Pico W microcontroller was launched on Thursday, based on the RP2040 chip that is built on TSMC’s 40nm low-power process. This is an upgraded model of the Raspberry Pie Pico microcontroller that was launched in January last year. As the name suggests, the Pico W adds wireless connectivity for developing Internet of Things (IoT) projects. Furthermore, this microcontroller is designed to retain complete pin compatibility with its predecessor, the Raspberry Pie Pico platform. The company has also launched the Pico H and Pico WH, which are slightly more expensive than the regular versions and feature pre-attached pin headers.

Raspberry Pie Pico W, Pico H, Pico WH price, availability

The Raspberry Pie Pico W costs $6 (roughly Rs. 475) and can be purchased from the vendors listed on the Raspberry Pie site. In India, this microcontroller is priced at Rs. 490. The $5 (roughly Rs. 395) Pico H is also available on the official site. Meanwhile, customers will have to wait till August to get their hands on the Pico WH, which will cost $7 (roughly Rs. 555).

Raspberry Pie Pico W specifications, features

As mentioned earlier, this microcontroller features the in-house RP2040 platform that is built on TSMC’s 40nm low-power process. It also packs two 133MHz Arm Cortex-M0+ cores and 264KB of on-chip SRAM. The Raspberry Pie Pico W is also fitted with the Infineon CYW43439 chip for 2.4GHz 802.11n Wi-Fi connectivity. This chip can also support Bluetooth Classic and Bluetooth Low-Energy technologies. The company has teased enabling Bluetooth connectivity in the future. Also, this is programmable via C and MicroPython.

The Raspberry Pie Foundation has also launched the Pico H and Pico WH microcontrollers that feature pre-populated headers and the company’s new 3-pin debug connector. These added features could simplify the installation of these microcontrollers for some users.