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Raspberry Pi PCB Layout Revealed

Posted by samzenpus on from the final-design dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Yesterday, the final Raspberry Pi printed circuit board (PCB) layout was revealed. The word 'packed' comes to mind as this is one very complicated looking board. The reason for that is just how much Raspberry Pi has strived to save money on the machine by using complex routing to keep things small and cheap. The Raspberry Pi team don't believe the design is going to change again unless they missed something. With that in mind, they revealed the final board is exactly the same size as a credit card, measuring 85.65 x 53.98mm."

5 of 112 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Screen and keyboard? by vlm · · Score: 5, Insightful

    How am I going to use this computer without a screen and keyboard?

    I demand a credit card sized keyboard and screen!

    Thats called a "cell phone"

    --
    "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
  2. Complicated? by thoughtspace · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Huh? What's complicated about that board? Looks pretty normal.

    1. Re:Complicated? by ebenupton · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Would be great to get all the components on the top side. Unfortunately, you pay for that in extra track length between the SoC decoupling caps and the BGA balls. I believe Beagle and Panda both do this with their OMAPs, and (mostly) get away with it, and we may investigate it in a later revision; in general departing from datasheet recommendations makes me queasy, even for a chip I worked on...

  3. complex routing ? by alvieboy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    At first glance, this looks like a normal routing with a 4-layer board. Eventually 6, if you add proper ground + power.

    There's nothing indicative of PCB parameters, like drill sizes, clearances, blind/buried vias, minimum trace width, so on. Again, a simple look reveals nothing but common parameters for PCB.

    Again, TFA is biased.

  4. Re:Features? by tlhIngan · · Score: 4, Insightful

    While I'm with you on this on many levels (remember building things with the 4000 series? Yeah, we don't do that anymore.

    Why not? The CMOS 4000 series and TTL 74xx series is still around, even in the various combinations (74HCxx CMOS, 74HS, etc). They're still availble from Digikey and the like, and many designs actually use them still.