Raspberry Pi – An affordable and accessible microcontroller

UK-based Raspberry Pi has one mission: to make computing affordable and accessible to everyone. This has led to robust, high-performing single-board computers offered at an attractive price point and supported by a worldwide network of users.

To bring these values to its own silicon products, Raspberry Pi developed the RP2040microcontroller, delivering high performance at low cost, in a compact package.

TSMC access

The RP2040 was designed by Raspberry Pi’s in-house team. For the operational aspects of bringing the product to market, however, they sought to augment their capabilities with those of a reliable partner. They found that partner in IC-Link, which manages packaging design, testing, and foundry relations.

Foundry access is particularly important for a company like Raspberry Pi. Even though they’re growing rapidly, their production volumes are too low to engage directly with manufacturing partners.

IC-Link helps overcome that barrier by offering aggregated runs and leveraging its partnerships with foundries. The RP2040 is manufactured at TSMC on a 40nm process node.

More than the silicon itself

While Raspberry Pi continues to expand its in-house capabilities, it expects its relationship with IC-Link to become increasingly critical to the organization’s success. This is especially true for projects that require access to very advanced process nodes.

In the words of Eben Upton, Raspberry Pi’s CEO and co-founder: “IC-Link is like a ladder that we are climbing to greater levels of scale as a fabless semiconductor company. Through their connections, we're not only acquiring the silicon itself, but better insights into how our industry operates.”