“Almost exactly a year ago, we launched Raspberry Pi Pico, the first product powered by our own microcontroller, RP2040. Since then, we’ve sold nearly 1.5 million Picos, and thousands of you have used RP2040 in your own electronic projects and products.
Since June, RP2040 has been available through our worldwide network of Approved Resellers, for a single-unit price of $1. This remains the best way to get your hands on the chip for prototyping, and for small- to medium-scale production. But as RP2040 products begin to ramp to scale, and the global semiconductor shortage has transmuted most other microcontrollers into unobtainium, we’ve started to see people asking to buy tens of thousands of chips at a time.
To allow us to serve these customers better, today we’re launching Raspberry Pi Direct.
Raspberry Silicon, direct from Raspberry Pi
Raspberry Pi Direct is an online storefront, which currently sells exactly two products:
Reels of 500 RP2040 chips, with a unit price of $0.80
Reels of 3,400 RP2040 chips, with a unit price of $0.70
Simply create an account, add products to your basket, and check out as you would do in any online store. We’ll contact you to arrange payment by bank transfer (Raspberry Pi Direct does not support credit or debit card payments), and ship your products once funds clear.
Unobtainium no longer
RP2040 is built on a more modern semiconductor process (TSMC 40LP) than most other microcontrollers. As a result, it makes extremely efficient use of scarce silicon wafer supply: each die occupies just 2mm2, and each 300mm wafer yields roughly 21,000 dice. We have sufficient wafer stock on hand to produce 20 million chips, with more on the way.
If you want to build your product on a microcontroller you can actually buy in 2022, RP2040 is your friend. Head on over to Raspberry Pi Direct to get yours today.”