CM0 – a new Raspberry Pi you can't buy

Summary

This little postage stamp is actually a full Raspberry Pi Zero 2, complete with eMMC storage and WiFi. But you can't get one. Well, not unless you buy the CM0NANO development board from EDAtec, or you live in China. This little guy doesn't have an HDMI port, Ethernet, or even USB. It's a special version of the 'Compute Module' line of boards. Little Raspberry Pi 'System on Modules' (SoMs), they're called. Compute Modules are entire Linux computers about the size of a regular desktop CPU that you 'plug in' to another board, to give it life. Compute modules are everywhere, in kiosks, signage, 3D printers, and even the new Ableton Move. If you just need a little bit of Linux for networking and remote control, these are perfect for that. And the CM0 is now the smallest version, a little bigger than a postage stamp. But unlike all the other Compute Modules, the CM0 has castellated edges like a Pico. That way, a company integrating this into their product can just pick and place it and solder it onto their main PCB, instead of working with more delicate board-to-board connectors. But why is this only in China? I'll get to that, but first I wanted to thank EDAtec for sending a CM0 and their CM0NANO dev board for testing. Without them, I don't think I'd ever be able to show these Pis to you. Video I posted this story to my YouTube channel, but if you're on the blog already, chances are you favor reading over video, so scroll on! ED-CM0NANO EDAtec's CM0NANO seems to be the official IO board for the CM0. It breaks out every feature on the RP3A0 chip at the heart of the Pi Zero 2 and CM0. There's 10/100 Ethernet through a little USB to Ethernet chip (CoreChips SR9900A), two USB 2.0 ports, full-size HDMI, and USB-C for power and flashing the eMMC. Then there are display and camera connectors, GPIO, and a few more headers. To flash the onboard eMMC, I had to switch the RPI_BOOT_SW switch towards the RTC battery slot, then use rpiboot to mount it on my Mac. Then I used Raspberry ...