When is a Raspberry Pi not a Raspberry Pi? Perhaps when it’s a Pi Pico-shaped board with an RP3A0 SoC from a Raspberry Pi Zero 2, made by [jonny12375].
Back in the early days of the Raspberry Pi, there was a offering from the Korean manufacturer Odroid, which wasn’t merely a similar machine with a different SoC, but a full clone in a smaller form factor featuring the same BCM2385 chip as the original. It was electrically and software-wise identically to the real thing, which we suspect didn’t go down very well with the Pi folks in Cambridge. The supply of Broadcom chips dried up, and ever since then the only way to get a real Pi has been from the official source. That’s not quite the end of the unofficial Pi story though, because a few hardy experimenters have made Pi clones like this one using chips desoldered from the real thing.
It’s the fruit of a reverse-engineering project to find the chip’s pinout, and it’s a proof of concept board rather than the intended final target of the work. The process involved painstakingly sanding down each layer of a Zero 2 board to reveal the traces and vias. The current board has a few quirks but it boots, making this an impressive piece of work on all counts. We’re looking forward to seeing whatever the final project will be.
If you’re hungry for more Pi-derived goodness, we’ve also seen one using the part form a Pi 3.
I had an Odroid, it wasn’t 100% electrically or software compatible, but it was close. If I remember rightly it could run off a single lithium cell with a charging circuit.
Sadly while photographing it near some coins for scale I forgot to remove the coins from my workbench and soon after shorted out the odroid. I believe I had a 3″ screen in an original GameBoy and was planning a portable.
But it was not super comparible and it didn’t seem like a great idea to try and support clones alongside all the other versions of the Pi.
There is an overview on Level 2 Jeff: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7IvioiveOo
They didn’t just dry up, raspi restrict the supply of chips. Just like apple.
The raspi is not open source.
And? Which SoC is opensource?!! At most you can have an opensource SoC implementation running on a proprietary FPGA manufactured using hyperproprietary machines in a cleanroom which is constructed by pure inscrutable opaque magic.
I’m not talking about the SoC. Though it you DO want an open SoC there are FPGA-based options.
No, I’m talking about just about everything else. The board isn’t open source. The Intel-Management-Engine-esq VPU code (which boots the system, is always running in the background, through which many hardware accesses happen, and which has the highest level of privledge) isn’t open source either. And then there’s Raspi using DRM lockout chips to try to restrict you to only their cameras. To say nothing of the fiasco of suddenly handing root on everyone’s devices to microsoft to install what they please, just to bring vscode to the pi.
Honestly, it’s hard to find ANYTHING open source about a raspi. Sure, they ship linux. But so do Dell. https://www.dell.com/en-ca/shop/dell-laptops/scr/laptops/appref=ubuntu-linux-os
It is Broadcom, so…
So they could sell the chip on the open market. Mouser. Digikey. Whatever.
But they don’t, because the raspi foundation says not to. It’s that simple.
It’s Broadcom, so really shouldn’t be a surprise to anybody.
Hell, the rPi people had a hell of a time dealing with Broadcoms management, despite some of them working closely with them in one way or another already.
Only after the popularity and positive PR after the launch of the OG rPi were Broadcom willing to play ball and actively help them as a whole.
No, it’s not just “broadcom.” This is at the request of the raspi foundation.
The raspi foundation don’t want anyone (eg. competitors like orangpi) to be able to manufacture 100% compatible boards (like all the atmega328 arduino clones), so they don’t let broadcom sell the chips they use on the open market.
You realise they are part of Broadcom despite being a legally separate entity right? This was a marketing experiment that worked, don’t pretend they are not under company management.
They aren’t part of broadcom. (do you know anything about the post-buyout broadcom at all?)
They do however have a lot of ex-broadcom employees at the raspi foundation and a strong relationship, which is how they’re able to negotiate exclusive supply.
teensy is faster ;)
sorry but I need more eficient power not compatible. Linux is compatible for my project
And also uses DRM, in the form of a proprietary bootloader chip you have to buy from them.
The Odroid wasn’t a clone, it was simply pin compatible and used the same SoC.
Hardkernel is the most ethical Asian based company I’ve ever dealt with, not that there aren’t others.
I would like to see a lot more raspi-compatible boards out there, but sadly raspi have intentionally made it so you can’t buy the same soc they use anymore.
thanks for this