Raspberry Pi Pico

[Rasz]

its the old Soviet trick - the pricing is always very reasonable when there is no merchandise in stock

Because they are still producing them 

Everyone is "still producing them". GPU vendors, car electronic suppliers, even STMicroelectronics STM32, everyone is on a waiting list and everything is on backlog aka no merchandise in stock. I can offer you $1 AMD Ryzen 9 5950X by the pallet, but its currently out of stock, have some $1000 ones instead in the mean time.

"Available to back order for despatch 04/08/2021"
https://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/microcontrollers/2211610/

$629.11 per reel of 500 and out of stock. You are proving my point 

[josip]

I didn't found in RP2040 datasheet, is there any way to protect firmware on external flash chip or / and secure SWD interface?

[exe]

I'm not an expert, but since rp2040 doesn't have non-volatile memory, this means it's hard to securely store decryption key. I see there is not even a unique serial key (https://github.com/OpenLightingProject/rp2040-dongle/issues/7).

It's an interesting challenge. I don't see a way how to do it.

[SiliconWizard]

I'm not an expert, but since rp2040 doesn't have non-volatile memory, this means it's hard to securely store decryption key. I see there is not even a unique serial key (https://github.com/OpenLightingProject/rp2040-dongle/issues/7).

Yep. The RPi foundation was clearly looking to lower cost as much as possible. Not having any form of NVM is a problem though. As you said, it can be used for storing keys, or for storing configuration bits.
Even a unique ID is an extra process step, and it adds cost.

Whereas this chip is certainly interesting, I still think (as I probably said earlier) it's not made for "professional" use. So we can't whine there is some important - for some use cases - feature missing. The RPi may release a more advanced MCU based on the same architecture later on. Don't know what their plans are.

[NorthGuy]

I didn't found in RP2040 datasheet, is there any way to protect firmware on external flash chip or / and secure SWD interface?

If you only want the chip to be used by Open Source projects, you don't need firmware protection, do you?

[exe]

I guess some people are interested in closed-source projects and looking for a way to protect their IP .

I personally would like it support for encryption and protection because that would widen the market for rpi mcus. Better sales can potentially make better pricing, better support, bigger community, etc.

[SiliconWizard]

I guess some people are interested in closed-source projects and looking for a way to protect their IP .

I personally would like it support for encryption and protection because that would widen the market for rpi mcus. Better sales can potentially make better pricing, better support, bigger community, etc.

But there are literally thousands of MCUs on the market for this. Why insist on the RP2040 to be something it's not?

[exe]

I was talking about potential future MCUs from RPI.

[thm_w]

$629.11 per reel of 500 and out of stock. You are proving my point 

*$523 per reel of 500.

Its a preorder. Feel free to advertise something below cost as a preorder, let your customers order, and then change the price later. See how many get pissed off and won't order from you again.

[Rasz]

$629.11 per reel of 500 and out of stock. You are proving my point 

*$523 per reel of 500.

Its a preorder. Feel free to advertise something below cost as a preorder, let your customers order, and then change the price later. See how many get pissed off and won't order from you again.

Merchandise is not available so the price doesnt matter. You might want to read rs-online legalese

>The price for forward orders may be varied by RS after the date of order acceptance

aka its a fake price for a product that doesnt exist at this moment.

What we do learn from this is they are listing reels at above "single quantity prices". Do you want to buy a pallet full of CPU trays at retail single quantity prices?

So either single quantity price is a lie, there are/were only 40K chips send out by the pee foundations so they decide to turn this global shortage into a PR win, or rs-online is trying to gouge on forward orders omitting volume discounts.

[chickenHeadKnob]

aka its a fake price for a product that doesnt exist at this moment.

What we do learn from this is they are listing reels at above "single quantity prices". Do you want to buy a pallet full of CPU trays at retail single quantity prices?

So either single quantity price is a lie, there are/were only 40K chips send out by the pee foundations so they decide to turn this global shortage into a PR win, or rs-online is trying to gouge on forward orders omitting volume discounts.

Other possibilities exist. Like we badly misjudged how popular these will be so we will use the pre-orders to gauge how much fab space and time to buy for the next batches.

[SiliconWizard]

I was talking about potential future MCUs from RPI.

Yeah, so as I said in the post before, the RPi foundation may release MCUs with more features based on the same architecture, but I for one do not know anything about what their plans actually are.
Who knows if this chip is going to be the first and last of their MCUs, at least their ARM-based MCUs. Who knows if they are not going to switch to RISC-V for their next one. Who knows exactly what they are going to do next. Generally speaking, just don't expect the RPi to act as any commercial company - which they are definitely not.

[exe]

don't expect the RPi to act as any commercial company - which they are definitely not.

I think their decisions are largely driven by sales (or demand), just like a commercial company. They can go RISC-V in their next MCU, but sticking to ARM makes more sense to me.

[Rasz]

Other possibilities exist. Like we badly misjudged how popular these will be so we will use the pre-orders to gauge how much fab space and time to buy for the next batches.

there is no fab space to buy right now, some analyst claim there wont be for another 6-12 months, others predictions are even bleaker

[gamalot]

I ordered 20 pieces of RP2040 at PiAustralia at a unit price of 1.50 Australian dollars.

Finally, the 20 pieces of RP2040 I ordered from PiAustralia were delivered. I checked their website again, now they have the same limit of three pieces per order as another Raspberry Pi distributor in Australia (Core).

[dave j]

RP2040's have been added to JLCPCB's parts library. Announcement on the Raspberry Pi site.

[ChanceTran]

Hi....That is particularly nice to think concerning what dialects are smarter to utilize it with - I've not contacted MicroPython previously, and to be straightforward I don't know I would. I've accomplished heaps of work on inserted applications throughout the long term and it's constantly been with C, so that is my go-to language for anything this near the metal.

That being said, I was extremely shocked to understand the thing you said about not being extraordinary for timing-basic stuff! I had completely expected/trusted that the pico would be liberated from the bedlam of multi-strung intrudes on that makes exact planning so shakey on the Raspberry Pi, yet I surmise since it has a multicore/string design we can't anticipate that. Which is a disgrace, on the grounds that there's a wide range of clock and touch banging applications that may require it. Be that as it may, on the in addition to side, with the worked in comms peripherals and a DMA, I'm trusting the vast majority of the circumstance basic stuff can be taken care of by devoted equipment.

[SiliconWizard]

Not sure I really got what ChanceTran meant overall. So a couple remarks from what I think they might have meant:

- You can absolutely use the RP2040 with C. You can absolutely go 100% bare metal, although the C SDK is not bad, at least for starters! But CMSIS include files are provided, so you can definitely go bare metal right away without the SDK.

- It has only 1 "true" timer, as we said, but has a number of other resources that can be used as such: PWM and PIO. Yes, the PIO is very flexible and you can use its two X and Y registers (per state machine) as 32-bit timer counters, at up to the system clock. So in the end, the fact there's only one dedicated timer is not as limiting as one could initially think. The PIO actually allows to implement cycle-accurate stuff in a fully programmable way, which not a lot of other MCUs allow.

Not sure I got the essence of the rant.

So anyway, curiosity got the best of me, and I finally took the plunge, ordered a couple boards and started evaluating the RP2040 with the C SDK. It confirms that it's an interesting chip with an odd mix of features, but it certainly "beats" most MCUs you can find at this price point, or even at several times the cost in somes cases.