What Is Raspberry Pi: 7 Answers You Should Know

Topics of Discussion

• Overview Of Raspberry Pi
• Raspberry Pi Logo
• Raspberry Pi Accessories & Hardware
• Raspberry Pi Fan
• Raspberry Pi Battery
• Raspberry Pi Power Buttons
• Raspberry Pi Shut Down Command

Overview

Raspberry pi is a small digital computer which has a wide range of applications in the field of modern technologies. It is a programmable device which can work as per requirement. The hardware ( main raspberry pi accessories) is implemented in a single board, and that is why the demand for it increasing exponentially. 

Raspberry Pi in the United Kingdom develops raspberry pi, and it is one of the bestselling computers in the world.

What is Raspberry Pi Drone? Check out other Raspberry Pi Applications!

Raspberry Pi accessories and Hardware

A typical raspberry pi accessories and important hardware are combination of a RAM, A CPU, GPU, USB hub, Ethernet chip, and the input-output port.

Processor

The microprocessor is the heart of the raspberry pi. First-generation raspberry pi uses BCM2835 SoC processor which has an s-processor, a GPU and a RAM unit. It has two cache level – primary and secondary level. The primary level cache has 16 KiB memory, and the second-level cache has 128 KiB memory. The secondary cache or the level 2 cache is associated with the GPU. The operational frequency of the processor stands at 700Mhz.

The preliminary version of Raspberry Pi 2, has a quad-core ARM cortex processor with a speed of 900 MHz. The level 2 cache memory limit is increased to 256KiB. The second version of Raspberry pi is updated with 1.2 GHz and 64-bit processor. The Broadcom BCM2836 Soc was brought back. The production of BCM2836 Soc was stopped before in 2016.

The raspberry pi 3 uses Broadcom BCM2837 Soc, and raspberry pi 4 uses Broadcom BCM2711 Soc. The speed of raspberry pi 3 stands at 1.2 GHz as it uses ARM Cortex – A53 processor and the rate of raspberry pi 4 stands at 1.5 GHz as it comes with ARM Cortex A72 processor.

The specification of processors for different versions, shown in the below table.

Model & version	Processor	Broadcom Soc	Speed	Cache
Raspberry Pi	ARM1176JZF-S	BCM2835	700 MHz	L1 – 16 KiB L2 – 128 KiB
Raspberry Pi 2 V1.1	ARM CORTEX-A7 (32 bit)	BCM2836	900 MHz	L2 – 256KiB
Raspberry Pi 2 V1.2	ARM CORTEX-A53 (64 bit)	BCM2837	1.2 GHz
Raspberry Pi 3 Model – B	ARM CORTEX-A53 (64 bit)	BCM2837	1.2 GHz A+, B+ – 1.4 GHz	L2 – 512 KiB
Raspberry Pi 4	ARM CORTEX-A72 (64 bit)	BCM2711	1.5 GHz	L2 – 1 MiB

Know about microprocessors Here!

RAM

RAM is the main memory segment for raspberry pi. First generations of raspberry pi have RAM of 256 MiB- 128 MiB was for GPU and 128 MiB for CPU. The primary releases of the Raspberry pi RAM were separate able. 192 MiB memory was set for CPU. That much memory is enough for high-quality video decoding, 3D image processing. The 224 MiB was for the operating system that is Linux processing. Then another 128 MiB was for high load processing like – 3D processing.

Later there was a new model of ram size 512 MiB. It has specific split files.

The Raspberry Pi consists of 1 GiB Ram while Raspberry Pi 4 has RAM of 2, 4, 8 GiB of RAMS according to various model.

Networking

To connect with the internet, the ethernet port is there for Raspberry Pi 4 models. Previously there were no ethernet ports; instead, there were USB ethernet or Wi-Fi connectivity. Bluetooth connection is available for Raspberry Pi 3 and Pi Zero W., The version of the Bluetooth, is 4.1. The wi-Fi versions for those models are – 802.11n with 2.4 GHz bandgap.

Shape, Size & Weights

The increasing demand for Raspberry Pi is for its flexible size and small weight. It has a variety of sizes and can be easily fit into various electronics circuits. Raspberry Pi models are generally rectangular. A logo of raspberry pi is printed on the board. Weights and shapes of different Raspberry pi models are shown in the following table.

Model	R Pi 1 A	R Pi 1 A+	R Pi 3 A+	R Pi 2 B	R Pi 3 B	R Pi 4 B
Size	85.6 mm X  56.5 mm	65mm X 56.5 mm X 10 mm	65 mm X 56.5mm	85.60 mm X 56.5 mm	85.60 mm X 56.5 mm X 17 mm	85.60 mm X 56.5 mm X 17 mm
Weight	31 g	23 g	45 g	45 g	45 g	46 g

General Purpose Input- Output (GPIO) connector

One of the main features that have made Raspberry Pi so popular is the input-output pins. Almost every model of raspberry pi has the input-output pins. Raspberry Pi 1 models have 26 pins for both models A and model B. Models like A+ and B+ of version 1 have 40 pins. Raspberry pi 2 model B and all models of raspberry pi 3 has 40 pinouts. The specification table for the input-output pins is given below for further clarification.

PIN	GPIO	FUNCTION
1		+ 3.3 V
2		+ 5 V
3	2	SDA1 (I2C)
4		+5V
5	3	SCL1 (I2C)
6		GND
7	4	GCLK
8	14	TXD0 (UART)
9		GND
10	15	RXD0 (UART)
11	17	GEN0
12	18	GEN1
13	27	GEN2
14		GND
15	22	GEN3
16	23	GEN4
17		+ 3.3 V
18	24	GEN5
19	10	MOSI (SPI)
20		GND
21	9	MISO (SPI)
22	25	GND
23	11	SCLK (SPI)
24	8	CEO_N (SPI)
25		GND
26	7	CE1_N (SPI)
27	0	ID_SD (I2C)
28	1	ID_SC (I2C)
29	5	N/A
30		GND
31	6	N/A
32	12
33	13	N/A
34		GND
35	19	N/A
36	16	N/A
37	26	N/A
38	20	DIGITAL IN
39		GND
40	21	DIGITAL OUT

Raspberry pi fan

Raspberry pi model 4 comes with a case fan for its subsidiary models. It is specially designed for over clockers and other power consumers. It controls the temperature of the raspberry pi and thus made it more user friendly. The specifications of the fan are –

Input Voltage: 5V DC supplied via a general-purpose input-output header.

The fan speed is changeable.

Maximum airflow is 1.4 CFM.

Raspberry Pi battery

Raspberry pi models are fed into powers via an external cable which is connected with some power source. There is no in-built connection to place a battery inside the raspberry pi model. But now, there are several vendors for raspberry pi batteries. You just need to pick up the correct product for the model and connect it properly. It will be placed externally.

Raspberry Pi Power Buttons

There are no in-build power buttons for raspberry pi models. But there are ways to solve the problem. External power buttons can be added with the raspberry pi board to switch on and off the raspberry pi. Switching off the raspberry pi indicates that the model goes into HALT state for operation.

Note that raspberry pi accessories are necessary to build the power button externally.

Raspberry pi shutdown command

The raspberry pi model can be turned off (goes to halt state) using a specific command. If someone s using the command line or terminal windows, then type the following command –

sudo shutdown -h now.

Raspberry Pi Operating Systems

Raspberry pi runs using Linux Operating Systems. The specific version is known as ‘Raspbian’. It is a 32-bit operating system. Other types of OS can be operated using Micro or Mini SD cards.

Python and Scratch can be used as programming language though other languages have a scope too. The firmware (it is a software class which can control hardware of a specific device) is a closed structure, but there are unofficial opens sources available as well.

There are some other operating systems which are available in official websites. They include Ubuntu MATE, Windows 10 IoT Core, etc.

Some examples of Linux based OS and not Linux based OS are given in the below table.

Linux Based	Not Linux Based
Android Things	RISC OS
Arch Linux ARM	2.  FREEBSD
OpenSUSE	3. NetBSD
SUSE Linux Enterprise (Server 12 SP2)	4. Plan 9 from Bell Labs
Gentoo Linux	5. Windows 10 IoT Core
Lubuntu	6. Haiku
Xubuntu	7. Helen OS
Devuan	8. Broadcom VCOS
Kali Linux
Ark OS
Tiny Core Linux
Void Linux
Fedora
OpenWrt
RetroPie
Postmarket OS
Alpine OS

APIS

API is a software known as Application Programming Interface. It is the link between two applications. It is a computing interface.

Video Core IV GPU can be used via binary blob for Raspberry Pi. The GPU code does the main work for the driver.

The firmware used by Raspberry Pi is a binary blob, and it is free of license.

There are also different third-part application software like – Astro Print, C/C++ Interpreter Ch, Mathematica, Minecraft, Real VNC, User Gate Web Filter, Steam link, etc.

The software inside the raspberry pi can be developed using various tools and raspberry pi accessories. Some of the tools are – Arduino IDE (Arduino programming),  BlueJ (Java beginners), Lazarus (Pascal IDE), Ninja IDE (python), TensorFlow (Machine learning and Deep learning framework developed by Google). etc.

Know More About APIs, Click Here!

Raspberry Pi Accessories

To operate a raspberry pi, there are specific devices that one need to use. Some of the raspberry pi accessories for beginners are –

• DC motor,
• motor driver,
• LCD and Segment display,
• light sensor,
• temperature sensor,
• Extra general-purpose input and output pins,
• resistors,
• rheostats,
• capacitors,
• transformers,
• breadboard,
• potentiometer,
• jumper wires for connections, etc.

These raspberry pi accessories will help to use raspberry Pi to perform better in multiple real time applications.

Raspberry Pi Logo

The raspberry pi foundation organized a logo making competition for their product. On the 7^th of October 2011, they declared the result. Paul Beech got the highest numbers of votes from the judges and won the competition. He makes the current logo.