Seeed Studio Partners with Pierluigi Colangeli on the Compact CM5 Minima Carrier

Seeed Studio has announced a collaboration with maker Pierluigi Colangeli to launch an open-hardware small-footprint carrier board for Raspberry Pi's Compute Module 5 (CM5) computer-on-module (COM) — yet bringing out a wealth of features, including wired Ethernet connectivity and M.2 M-key PCI Express support.

"The CM5 MINIMA is a compact carrier board for the latest Raspberry Pi Compute Module 5," Seeed Studio explains of the device. "It is designed for embedded applications, DIY electronics, and low-power computing projects. Unlike traditional desktop computers, the CM5 is a small, efficient system that integrates essential computing hardware onto a single board. Whether you're a hobbyist, developer, or engineer, this module provides a versatile platform for various applications, including IoT, automation, and custom hardware development. This product is a co-create collaboration with Seeed Studio and Pierluigi Colangeli."

The CM5 Minima, brought to our attention by Linux Gizmos, is, as the name suggests, designed with Raspberry Pi's Compute Module 5 in mind — the more powerful successor to the Compute Module 4, built around the same quad-core system-on-chip as the Raspberry Pi 5 single-board computer range. Where most carrier boards are at least as large as a Raspberry Pi 5 or larger, though, the CM5 Minima is considerable smaller — at 61×61mm (around 2.4×2.4"), it's barely larger than the Compute Module 5 itself.

Despite this small footprint, the board breaks out an impressive number of features: there's a full-size HDMI port, a wired gigabit Ethernet port, two USB 2.0 ports one of which doubles as a USB Power Delivery (PD) input, a shared-function MIPI Display Serial Interface/Camera Serial Interface (DSI/CSI) connector, and an M.2 M-key slot compatible with Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe) storage and PCI Express-connected machine learning and artificial intelligence accelerators.

Elsewhere on the board is a real-time clock (RTC), integrated STMicroelectronics LIS3DH accelerometer connected to an STM32 microcontroller — designed with automatic camera orientation in mind, Seeed Studio explains — plus connections for I2C and SPI buses, an optional active cooling fan, and three general-purpose input/output (GPIO) pins. The design, Seeed says, is focused around using the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 5 in handheld devices, smart camera systems, media systems, home automation setups, and Internet of Things "smart devices."

The CM5 Minima is listed on Seeed Studio's store at $65 before volume discounts, excluding Raspberry Pi Compute Module 5; hardware is expected to arrive in mid-August, the company has said. Design files and schematics, meanwhile, are available on GitHub under the strongly reciprocal version of the CERN Open Hardware License 2.