Wolfgang Friedrich's P42 Pico2 M.2 Pops a Raspberry Pi RP2350A on an M.2 Card
If your laptop or single-board computer has an M.2 slot doing nothing, why not fill it with a flexible microcontroller?
Electronics engineer Wolfgang Friedrich has opened pre-orders for a compact M.2 form factor module designed to add a Raspberry Pi RP2350A microcontroller to single-board computers and other embedded systems: the P42 Pico2 M.2.
"A R[aspberry] Pi Pico RP2350A microcontroller board in M.2 3024 size form factor with A and E key[ing]," Friedrich explains of the P42 Pico2 M.2 board. "The M.2 interface has USB, UART, I2C, and control IO [Input/Output] connectivity. A microcontroller could give any host computer flexible and excellent real-time IO and data processing capabilities. The R[aspberry] Pi Pico with its programmable PIO [Programmable Input/Output] interface has excellent timing resolution."
Adding an RP2350 microcontroller, Raspberry Pi's second-generation in-house microcontroller design, to a USB-capable host is as simple as buying a Raspberry Pi Pico 2 and plugging it in — but Friedrich's design goes further. It's packaged as an M.2 module, for starters, meaning it doesn't tie up a USB port nor add to a device's footprint. It also includes an integrated microSD Card slot on the underside for additional storage — a feature lacking from the official Raspberry Pi Pico 2.
The smaller form factor does mean that there are fewer general-purpose input/output (GPIO) pins available, though: castellated headers on either side of the board provide access to 16 GPIO pins, plus power, ground, and Serial Wire Debug (SWD) capabilities; there's also a footprint, unpopulated by default, for a Qwiic connector for solderless expansion.
Friedrich has opened orders for the board on Lectronz at $26.99, with a goal of receiving at least 25 and no more than 100 pre-orders on a 56-day lead time. "To do my due diligence I am running this pre-order campaign to gauge market fit and customer interest," the engineer explains. "I already got feedback that people want to fill their unused M.2 slots in their laptop, [and] I am open to suggestions for future products."
Design files and source code for the project are available on GitHub, under an unspecified license.
