Olimex Teases the RP2040-PICO30, a Raspberry Pi Pico Alternative with 30 GPIO Pins Exposed

Open-hardware specialist Olimex has announced an upcoming new development board design which mimics the Raspberry Pi Pico layout, complete with RP2040 microcontroller — but exposes a total of 30 general-purpose input/output (GPIO) pins, up from 26 on the original.

"For our new Neo6502 design, we needed to use all 30 GPIOs on the RP2040," Olimex founder Tsvetan Usunov explains, referring to the company's upcoming MOS 6502-based retro-themed single-board computer (SBC) design.

"Although the RP2040 has 30 GPIOs, only 26 of them are available for the user, as GPIO23 controls the power supply, GPIO24 detects if USB is connected, GPIO25 is connected to the status LED, and GPIO29 measures the power supply after the 3.3V voltage regulator. While all these features are nice to have, there are many situations when you need to use ALL available GPIOs."

That's where The RP2040-PICO30 comes in. As the name suggests, it's a Raspberry Pi Pico-style development board built around the dual-core Arm Cortex-M0+ RP2040 microcontroller — but with the changes required to expose additional GPIO pins. The pinout, Usunov explains, remains largely the same as the Raspberry Pi Pico — minus four ground pins, which now become the previously-unavailable GPIO pins.

Other changes in the spin-off design include a switch from the Raspberry Pi Pico's micro-USB data and power connector to the more modern USB Type-C, unlocking the ability to draw up to 3A of power, and the addition of an Olimex-standard UEXT connector for easy solder-free wiring of external hardware.

The board is, Usunov says, currently going through the prototyping process, with a view to launching in late May for €4.50 with 2MB of off-chip flash or €6.50 with 16MB (around $5 and $7 respectively); both models will be available with pre-soldered headers for an additional €1.50 (around $1.65) charge.

More information is available in Usunov's blog post.