Raspberry Pi 4 (Fig. 1) has hit the streets. But what’s the difference between it and its forebearers? The family is built around a compact form factor that has remained relatively consistent over time even as more powerful processors are used and higher-speed interfaces are included. They tend to match the state of the art for compact modules, including the addition of wireless support in the Raspberry Pi 3. All are built around Broadcom Arm-based SoCs. The challenge has been keeping the price point at $35.
The Raspberry Pi 4 is the latest in a long line of compact application processor modules.