Wolfgang Friedrich's RP2040 M.2 Pico Puts Raspberry Pi's RP2040 Microcontroller Onto an M.2 Board
Mixed board design provides USB, UART, SPI, and I2C connectivity on its M.2 connector and GPIO on castellated headers.
Electrical engineer and self-described "electronics artisan" Wolfgang Friedrich is working on a Raspberry Pi RP2040-based microcontroller board with a difference: it's built to an M.2 AE-key form factor, allowing it to be used as an add-in board on selected desktops, laptops, and single-board computers.
"[This is] A [Raspberry Pi] Pico[-style] RP2040 microcontroller board in M.2 3024 size form factor with A and E key," Friedrich explains of the board. "To the M.2 interface it has USB, UART, I2C, and SPI connectivity. Voltage levels for the M.2 specification are obeyed as some of the interfaces run on 1.8V. Externally, +3.3 V, GND, the SWD interface, and 16 IOs [Inputs/Outputs] are accessible on castellated pins."
Friedrich's design is an interesting hybrid: the use of an M.2 AE-key form factor suggests a device designed for installation as an add-in board for desktops, laptops, and selected single-board computers; the castellated general-purpose input/output (GPIO) headers, though, would require wiring to something — or for the board to be installed as a surface-mount module.
For those whose itch it scratches, though, the board — which its creator has dubbed the "RP2040 M.2 Pico" — could be a tempting way to integrated the Raspberry Pi Pico's capabilities into an existing design, with the benefit of modularity and a view to potential replacement with a more powerful Raspberry Pi RP2350-based version in the future.
More information on the board, which Friedrich describes as a work-in-progress, is available on Hackaday.io.