Raspberry Pi Unveils the $18 Compute Module 0 — But Only for Chinese Customers, for Now

Raspberry Pi has unveiled a new, cost-reduced entry in the Compute Module family of computers-on-modules (COMs) dubbed the Compute Module 0 (CM0) — starting at just $18, but currently available exclusively in China.

Unveiled this week at the China International Industry Fair in Shanghai, the Compute Module 0 takes the heart of the Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W — the RP3 system-in-package — and places it on a high-pin-count castellated module much more similar in design to third-party microcontroller "stamps" than the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 or 5, developed in partnership with local firm Shanghai EDATEC.

The RP3 gives the module four Arm Cortex-A53 processor cores running at up to 1GHz and 512MB of LPDDR2 memory, matching the Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W, while elsewhere on the module is a Wi-Fi and Bluetooth radio module and a footprint for eMMC flash storage. There's a connector for an external antenna, but no other accessible ports — until you install it on a carrier board at least.

For that, Raspberry Pi and its partner have announced a simple $30 two-layer reference design that brings out micro-USB Host and power connections, a microSD card slot, MIPI Display Serial Interface (DSI) and Camera Serial Interface (CSI) connectors, a single full-size HDMI port, and the familiar Raspberry Pi 40-pin general-purpose input/output (GPIO) header — plus an unpopulated 0.1" pin header for composite video output.

Being based on the RP3 means the performance of the new Compute Module 0 won't come close to the Compute Module 5, or even the Compute Module 4 — but it's targeting a very different market, with pricing reported by local news outlet IT Home at around $18 for the base model rising to $26 for the top-end module. It's also exclusive to the Chinese market: Raspberry Pi engineer James Hughes has confirmed that the parts are being marketed solely to "industrial Chinese customers," with no plans yet announced to release the hardware internationally.

"CM0 is a cost-engineered modular product specifically for the Chinese OEM market," Raspberry Pi's Eben Upton told us via email. "It's basically a [Raspberry Pi] Zero 2 W reformatted as a castellated module. No plans to make it available outside China at the moment, but we'll see how we get on."