Pimoroni Launches Tiny Sub-$10 Raspberry Pi Pico Alternative, Tiny 2040, with RGB LED, 8MB, and More
The Tiny 2040 might cost more than the $4 Raspberry Pi Pico, but boasts an ultra-compact form factor, 8MB of flash, and an RGB LED.
Pimoroni has officially launched its Tiny RP2040, an ultra-compact competitor to the Raspberry Pi Pico built around the same RP2040 microcontroller.
Launched late last month, the Raspberry Pi Pico represents several firsts from a company better known for its single-board computers: It's the first Raspberry Pi microcontroller board, housing the first silicon to be designed by its in-house application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) division, which in turn is the first chip the company is making available for third-party use.
Pimoroni is one of several companies taking advantage of that latter first, and alongside the announcement of several add-on boards for the Raspberry Pi Pico confirmed its plans to release an ultra-compact RP2040 board of its own — which is now available to buy.
"While we love the Raspberry Pi Pico we also wanted something smaller and with a bunch more flash on board," the company explains of its design. "Introducing the Tiny 2040 — a teeny tiny powerhouse with the chops to realise truly ambitious projects."
The Tiny 2040 uses the same Raspberry Pi RP2040 microcontroller as the Pico, running its two Arm Cortex-M0+ cores at the same 133MHz+ clock speed and with the same 264kB of static RAM (SRAM). From there, the two diverge considerably: The Tiny 2040 is an ultra-compact design the size of a UK postage stamp with 12 general-purpose input/output (GPIO) pins, an on-board switch, user-controllable RGB LED, and 8MB of quad-SPI flash with execute-in-place (XIP) capabilities.
The design also incorporates a 3.3V regulator allowing for an input voltage of 3-5.5V, a USB Type-C connector for programming and power in place of the micro-USB chosen for the Pico, and an on-board reset switch. As with the Pico, the Tiny 2040 includes castellated pin headers, allowing for breadboard use when male pin headers are soldered or for the entire board to be surface mounted as a module.
The Tiny 2040 is available to buy now, priced at $9.94 - a considerable premium over the $4 Raspberry Pi Pico — on the Pimoroni store, with a limit of two per customer.