Re:Raspberry Silicon update: RP2040 on sale now at $1
by sonium on Tuesday June 01, 2021 @08:22AM
(#27353405)
I guess they could have added the RPi WiFi chip for about USD 1.5 in BOM cost (assuming common industry prices based on distributor price/quantity matrix)
Re:Raspberry Silicon update: RP2040 on sale now at $1
by janekm on Wednesday June 02, 2021 @09:45AM
(#27368598)
It would probably make more sense to add an ESP32 rather than a BCM4335 like on the RPi since that chip is intended to run with a full host OS and needs a large binary driver blob (yes the ESP32 also has a binary blob).
Either way it's no longer cost effective.
It's also clearly going to have a great developer community building up around it, which has great value in itself.
It's also great value as a "easy to integrate cheap module" which is what they initially pitched it as.
Of course these days many applications need a wireless interface (wifi/BLE) and you can get competitive parts at similar prices to the RP2040 (ESP32 or a BLE MCU).