RS Components (RS), the trading brand of Electrocomponents, the global distributor for engineers, has announced that the next-generation Raspberry Pi 2 credit-card-sized single-board computer from the Raspberry Pi Foundation is now available to order at RSOnline.
Building upon the massive success of the first generation Raspberry Pi, and targeting consumers, businesses and educators, the new Raspberry Pi 2 Model B has significantly upgraded capabilities, with faster processor cores and a doubling in memory capacity to 1GB.
Raspberry Pi 2 incorporates the Broadcom BCM2836 application processor, containing a powerful ARM Cortex-A7 quad-core CPU running at 800MHz.
This new processor makes the Raspberry Pi 2 more than six times more powerful than the first generation Raspberry Pi Model B+. The board layout, multimedia subsystem and peripherals remain fully compatible with the Raspberry Pi Model B+, including the use of the extensive 40-pin GPIO (General Purpose Input Output) connector, four USB ports and an efficient switching power supply.
The increased computing power and memory capacity of the Raspberry Pi 2 will bring benefits to hobbyists, hackers and home developers enabling them to develop more powerful applications that will run faster. In addition, OEMs will also be able to benefit from the new board’s greater processing capacity as well as the Raspberry Pi platform’s record of reliability and robustness.
Those involved in educating the next generation of young programmers will also take notice of this highly capable new board.
“RS is a trusted and reliable source of products, technologies and information for engineers, hobbyists and developers worldwide,” says Eben Upton, founder and trustee of Raspberry Pi.
“The first generation Raspberry Pi platform has been widely adopted by many users in academic and consumer circles, and has also found use in industrial applications, where RS has played a very important role. The company’s DesignSpark community and the extensive range of free DesignSpark product-design software tools are connecting students, users and engineers from many domains around the world.
“The RS approach of providing key resources for software and hardware development complements the goals of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, and we look forward to the continuation of this highly fruitful relationship.”
Glenn Jarrett, Global Head of Marketing at RS Components, added, “The low-cost Raspberry Pi platform has proved to be a revolutionary tool in delivering programming to a whole new universe. RS has been honoured once again to have the opportunity to work with the Foundation as a distribution partner for this exciting next important step in the evolution of the Raspberry Pi platform.”
The new Raspberry Pi 2 offered by RS is manufactured exclusively in the UK, under licence by the distributor.