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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."

3 of 112 comments (clear)

  1. Also that size... by X86Daddy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Penguins and Altoids tins happen to be about that size as well... I wonder how well a populated Pi will fit... if so, awesome little PC cases!

  2. Re:Complicated? by muon-catalyzed · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Except nobody noticed that it is just one extended socket for the massive proprietary Broadcom BCM2835 chip (SoC) that provides pretty much everything, so this is 90% Broadcom thing, the UK team just provides fancy packaging and folklore. Does anybody know the price point of that Broadcom silicon?

  3. Re:Complicated? by Savantissimo · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Yet other manufacturers don't take that attitude. Go look at TI or Analog devices. Full datasheets right there, often running to hundreds of pages reasonably priced development boards, often free samples. Broadcom claims to have features such as DSP and GPU built in to this chip, but I don't know what use they are supposed to be if they are totally undocumented. Supposedly about 98% of the FLOPS in this thing are in the GPU, but good luck getting at them.

    --
    "Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" - Patrick Henry