Raspberry Pi RP2040 Microcontroller - Surface Mount Chips
The Raspberry Pi Foundation changed single-board computing when they released the original Raspberry Pi, and now they've done the same for microcontrollers with the RP2040. This powerful dual-core chip is available in packs of 100 surface-mount chips on cut tape — perfect for prototyping, development, and custom PCB designs.
The RP2040 delivers clock speeds comparable to SAMD51 (M4) processors, with two Cortex-M0+ cores for parallel processing. Its unique PIO (Programmable I/O) state machine system lets you create custom hardware peripherals in software — driving NeoPixels, I2S audio, LED matrices, TFTs, and even VGA output without tying up the CPU.
Key Features
- Dual ARM Cortex-M0+ @ 133 MHz – Two independent cores for parallel processing
- 264 KB On-Chip SRAM – Spread across six independent banks
- External Flash Support – Up to 16 MB via dedicated QSPI bus (external QSPI NOR flash chip required)
- 30 GPIO Pins – 4 of which support analog input
- 8 PIO State Machines – 2 PIO peripherals with 4 state machines each for custom hardware logic
- USB 1.1 Controller – With host and device support, plus built-in UF2 bootloader
- DMA Controller – Fully-connected AHB crossbar for efficient data transfer
- On-Chip LDO – Programmable low-dropout regulator to generate core voltage
- 2× PLLs – For USB and core clock generation
Peripherals
- 2× UART
- 2× SPI controllers
- 2× I2C controllers
- 16× PWM channels
- USB 1.1 controller and PHY
- 8× PIO state machines
UF2 Bootloader
The RP2040 includes a permanent ROM USB UF2 bootloader. Hold down the BOOTSEL button while plugging into USB (or pull the RUN/Reset pin to ground), and the chip appears as a USB mass storage device — simply drag and drop your firmware file to program it.
Package Contents
- 100× Raspberry Pi RP2040 microcontroller chips (on cut tape, no leaders)
Resources
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