RP2040 Pico Micro development board Matrix 5x5

Jargon buster

Plain-language definitions for the technical terms used above.

ADC

An analogue-to-digital converter reads a changing voltage and turns it into a number the microcontroller can use. It matters when connecting analogue sensors such as light, sound, or variable-resistor sensors.

Flash memory

Flash memory is non-volatile memory that retains stored data even when power is removed, and can be erased and rewritten in blocks. It lets data such as firmware, settings or saved records persist across power cycles.

GPIO

General-purpose input/output pins are microcontroller pins you can set in software to read signals, switch devices on and off, or connect to peripherals. The number of GPIO pins matters because it limits how many buttons, LEDs, sensors, and other parts you can wire directly to the board.

I2C

I2C is a two-wire communication bus used by many sensors and small modules. It matters because several I2C devices can share the same two wires, but each device needs a compatible address and your controller must support I2C.

LED

A light-emitting diode (LED) is a small electronic component that emits light when current flows through it in the correct direction. Because it only conducts one way, its polarity matters, and a through-hole LED must be soldered the correct way around to light up.

microcontroller

A microcontroller is a small computer on a single chip that runs a stored program and controls connected inputs and outputs such as buttons, sensors, displays and communication interfaces. In a device built around one, it is the part that executes the code and coordinates the device's behaviour.

PWM

Pulse Width Modulation is a way for a digital pin to simulate variable output power by switching on and off very quickly. It matters for controlling things like LED brightness, motor speed, or servo-style signals from a microcontroller pin.

RGB

Short for red, green and blue, the three primary colours of light that are mixed in varying amounts to make a wide range of colours. In electronics RGB can refer to an LED or pixel that blends these three colours, or to a colour signal or interface that carries separate red, green and blue channels.

RP2040

The RP2040 is a dual-core Arm Cortex-M0+ microcontroller chip from Raspberry Pi, used on many maker boards and offering programmable I/O, multiple GPIO pins and reasonable processing speed. Code and accessories built for that chip should work where RP2040 compatibility is listed, though demanding tasks such as reading a camera can require careful pin allocation and timing.

SPI

A fast serial communication bus often used for displays, memory cards, and sensors. It matters because SPI devices need specific pins for clock and data, plus a separate chip-select line for each device.

SRAM

Fast temporary memory used by a processor while a program is running. More SRAM helps with projects that handle larger data buffers, networking, displays, or more complex code.

UART

UART is a simple asynchronous serial interface that sends data over separate transmit and receive wires, usually labelled TX and RX, with both ends set to the same baud rate. It is a common way for microcontrollers and other serial devices to exchange data.

USB 1.1

USB 1.1 is an older USB standard with much slower data transfer than USB 2.0 and later versions. Compatibility with it allows connection to very old computers, though data-heavy tasks such as video may be limited at that speed.