this post was submitted on 19 Jul 2024
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The irony of the RP2040 is that the RPi guys opened the door for Intel when it comes to the SBC market.
Up until now it was very hard for Intel to get into the SBC market, not because of power or price, like most people think, but because Intel CPUs didn’t have proper GPIO, I2C, SPI baked in and the respective software support from all those Python libraries people like. Now with this low cost chip they can get that without changing their architecture and also have instant software support from all libraries and code previously made for the Raspberry Pi.
Furthermore, I’ve a few theories about why the RPI guys might be releasing their chip the way they are.
With this chip they make it so software/library compatibility is no longer a barrier to other CPU makers to enter the market - even Rockchip and Mediatek SBCs can include the RP2040 and gain instant software compatibility with any software library made for the Pi GPIO. Note that right now when RK releases an SBC it take a while for libraries to catch up with the GPIO definitions and whatnot.
However… with the chip the Pi guys also can enter the FTDI market of GPIO/SPI/i2C bridges and that’s a very big market. Almost every peripheral we connect to our computers is using one of those bridges to connect low level hardware such as microcontrollers to the computer or to simply toggle LEDs. Broadcom is now an investor of the Pi Foundation and they do a lot of hardware that does require those kinds of bridges… maybe they were the ones pushing the Pi guys into this direction because business wise it makes sense - they can test the reliability of those chips on the SBC market and once they’re sure they perform as good as FTDI ones they can use them everywhere for a fraction of the cost.
Mayhaps Intel didn’t see the
need(profitability) in such an undertaking. When you have a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W, with community and documentation settled nicely on the market, one does not simply undertake such odds.I’m certain that the market isn’t eagerly waiting, with bated breath, to purchase x86 SBCs just because GPIO is included in the package.
ARM (The Raspberry Pi foundation specifically) currently has the momentum in that market. When you want compute, you x86. When you want to signal the thing that computes, low powered ARM SBCs are currently the jobby.
Some industries are. Those ARM CPUs are unable to pass most harsh compliance tests and GPIOs on the industry are expensive and not as practical as they could be with a SBC. Right now the industry depends on very closed solutions that are a hard and expensive to deal with, or in big x86 machines with FTDI bridges for I/O.
Even if the SBCs can only serve a very small fraction of professional users during COVID we saw what happened to the stocks and that the Pi guys had to prioritize those markets.
Hobbyist users of SBCs are just the testing ground and initially the way to make it popular, the industry has the real numbers and scale but you can't just enter that market as easy.
You may also want to read this: https://lemmy.world/comment/11259594