In case you have missed it Raspberry Pi has launched its new product, second edition of Raspberry Pi Pico. It has a new microcontroller and it is lots of fun! Here, I highlight the most important things and differences.
It is necessary to distinguish two things. One, there is a new development board called Raspberry Pi Pico 2 and there is a new microcontroller family called RP2350 or RP235X to be precise. Previous version was equipped with RP2040. The new MCU is a considerable upgrade. So, let’s start with the comparison of these two microcontrollers.
RP2350 vs RP2040
| Feature | RP2350 | RP2040 |
|---|---|---|
| Cores | 2 x Dual-Core | Dual-Core |
| Core Architecture | 32-bit ARM Cortex-M33, or 32-bit RISC-V Hazard3 | 32-bit ARM Cortex-M0+ |
| Max CPU Clock | 150 MHz | 133 MHz |
| RAM | 520 KB, extensible via PSRAM | 264 KB |
| Flash | up to 16 MB via QSPI or 2 MB on-chip, 8 kB OTP memory | up to 16 MB via QSPI |
| Direct Memory Access | 12 x DMA | 12 x DMA |
| Security | Arm TrustZone, 8KB OTP, Secure Boot | None |
| Operating Voltage | 3.3V | 3.3V |
| USB Interface | USB 1.1 Device and Host | USB 1.1 Device and Host |
| Program Loading | USB Mass Storage, UF2 | USB Mass Storage, UF2 |
| GPIO | 30 x or 48 x Digital IO | 26 x Digital IO |
| ADC | 4 x or 8 x 12-bit ADC (Analog pins) | 4 x 12-bit ADC (Analog pins) |
| Peripherals | 2 x UART, 2 x I2C, 2 x SPI, 24 x PWM | 2 x UART, 2 x I2C, 2 x SPI, 16 x PWM |
| PIO | 3 (12 x state machines) | 2 (8 x state machines) |
| On Chip Sensor | Temperature | Temperature |
| IC Package | QFN-60 or QFN-80 | QFN-56 |
In above table I have compared these two MCUs. The most important changes are highlighted but let me sum it up. New RP2350 has two double cores. Either Cortex-M33 which now comes with FPU or two RISC-V cores. During runtime only one set of cores can be operational. Since we have new core Cortex-M33 also security features are present now. There is a slight increase of maximum clock frequency. Also, the RAM memory is almost twice as big reaching slightly over half a MB. RAM is also extensible via PSRAM. Depending on RP2350 there is build-in 2MB of Flash available. RP2050 comes in two packages QFN-60 and QFN-80, thus it is possible to provide more GPIOs. What is more, the larger package facilitates not only 4 ADC channels but 8 of them. Finally, it is worth to notice that the number of PIO was increased to 3 resulting in 12 state machines in total. The instructs were redefined a little bit but the maximum number of instruction is still 32.
As mentioned, currently there are four versions of RP2350 chip.
| RP235X | Package | Internal Flash | GPIO number | ADC channels |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| RP2350A | QFN-60 | None | 30 | 4 |
| RP2350B | QFN-80 | None | 48 | 8 |
| RP2354A | QFN-60 | 2 MB | 30 | 4 |
| RP2354B | QFN-80 | 2 MB | 48 | 8 |
Pico vs Pico 2
Raspberry Pi Pico and Raspberry Pi Pico 2 are almost identical. There is still a micro USB connector, the pinout is the same. In turn, the amount of external Flash memory was doubled, now it is 4 MB.
More about the Raspberry Pi Pico 2 at this site. Also, if you are interested here you will find RP2350 chip documentation.