RPi Founder Eben Upton Talks About the New Raspberry Pi 2

Raspberry Pi
RPi Founder Eben Upton Talks About the New Raspberry Pi 2
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Announced today by the Raspberry Pi Foundation, the Raspberry Pi 2 Model B is the first of the next generation of Raspberry Pi boards, and Eben Upton has a lot to say about it.

At the release of the Model B+ back in July last year Upton — the founder of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, and now CEO of the Raspberry Pi trading company — suggested that a higher performance Pi could be as far away as 2017. However, like the the side-view mirrors on your car, sometimes “objects [in mirror] are closer than they appear” and so it has turned out for the new Pi.

On the face of it the new Raspberry Pi 2 looks very similar to the Model B+, so similar in fact that if you sit them down next to each other the only way to tell them apart for sure is to flip the boards over and check for the presence of the SDRAM chip. Because unlike the Model B+ which used the same package-on-package (PoP) memory as the original Model B, the new board has moved the RAM off-board to a separate chip.

The two boards look so similar because the main change to the Pi isn’t visible — the single 700MHz ARMv6 core has been replaced by a quad core ARMv7 running at 900MHz. While there are some other minor changes, the only other major change beyond this has been to increase the onboard memory from 512MB to 1GB.

Although while idling the new Pi will not consume any more power than the previous generation of boards, when all four cores are being used the new board will consume more power and — due to increased leakage — will get much hotter. Hot enough that you might want to think about adding a heat sink, especially if you intend to overclock the chip.

While the new board ships with the cores clocked at 900MHz we’ve been told that it’ll run comfortably overclocked to higher speeds. So comfortably in fact that it was originally intended to ship the boards clocked to 800MHz and this was only changed in the last few days leading up to launch — no doubt there will be some people that’ll want to push the boundaries even further, to higher speeds.

“We were being conservative on the frequency in case we encountered issues in production. In practice, we’ve found we’re fine at 900MHz, with significant overclocking headroom over that. ” — Eben Upton, CEO at Raspberry Pi

The shift from an ARMv6 to ARMv7 is an important move for the Foundation as the original Pi was one of the few boards in widespread circulation using the older v6 architecture, and as a result some software projects had no plans to ever support it. Beyond that, efforts like Ubuntu Core for connected devices — which is only supported on ARMv7 and x86 — can be easily ported to the new generation of Pi boards.

However while the new board will need an ARMv7 kernel and modules, user space binaries built for ARMv6 can continue to be used, which means that the new board is fully software compatible with existing Raspberry Pi distributions of Linux.

So from today you should be able to ‘apt-get upgrade’ on an existing Raspbian installation to add an ARMv7 kernel to your distribution. The SD card can then be used — assuming it’s a Micro SD Card — to boot either a first or second generation Pi. Card images, along with a new NOOBS image, will also be posted that support both boards.

When we sat down and talked with Eben last week ahead of today’s launch, we also tried to dig into some of the more technical points behind the design of the new generation of boards.

The new BCM2836 SoC is more or less the old BCM2835 with the ARMv6 core cut out and a v7 quad core dropped in it’s place. However there are some other minor changes can you talk about those?

There aren’t any changes to the USB subsystem, but the power system has received a tweak. 2835 has an on-board SMPS: this wasn’t large enough to supply the current needed by the quad Cortex complex, so it was removed, and Pi 2 uses an external SMPS chip. Also, as the Cortex complex has its own 512KB L2 cache, we no longer use the 128KB system L2 — ARM traffic goes directly to SDRAM instead.

A lot of documentation has been released for the BCM2835, how relevant is this going to be to the BCM2836. Do you see Broadcom or yourselves releasing any more details about the lower level workings of the new chip?

All of the released documentation for 2835 applies directly to 2836. I’m hoping Broadcom will be able to release some additional data about hardware blocks on the chip (notably the high-speed interfaces and video scaler) in due course, but this isn’t committed yet.

You moved the memory from a package-on-package module into a separate chip on the rear side of the board. What drove that design decision? Does it have any advantages or disadvantages compared to the original PoP design?

We had to move to a 14×14 BGA for 2836, so a 12×12 PoP wouldn’t fit comfortably atop it. Primary downside: more PCB complexity. Primary upside: better thermals, as 2836 is now exposed directly to the air.

There are some v6 instruction sets that won’t be present in the new v7 chip. What are they, and do you think their absence will be particularly widely felt in the community?

The main userland difference is the lack of “short vector mode” in the FPU. This isn’t ever used in general purpose code: the only place I’m aware of it being used is in some media acceleration routines which we were responsible for ourselves and which aren’t enabled on 2836 (there are much better v7 versions available instead).

There was some speculation that a new board might make use of the BCM11130 — the same processor used in the Roku 3 — was that ever considered? Any reasons why, or why not?

We were keen to maintain full compatibility with BCM2835, and while BCM11130 is a great chip it has a rather different architecture which would have invalidated quite a lot of the low-level tutorials out there.

One of the reasons that this rumor was running around was that the BCM11130 has both Ethernet and USB onboard. The Pi has faced some criticism for running Ethernet traffic over the USB bus using the LAN9154. You’ve noted before that you don’t think this is a problem, can you talk about that?

Well, you have a 100Mbit interface downstream of a 480Mbit interface, so I’ve never been sure why some people are concerned by this choice. The nice thing about BCM11130 is that it has Gigabit Ethernet, but we didn’t see this as a strong enough requirement to justify a compatibility break.

Do you think the presence of the quad core will help makers, or industrial customers, who need low-level access to hardware?

I think it will help everyone to some extent. On the maker side, I’m looking forward to seeing some more sophisticated computer vision apps exploiting OpenCV+SMP+NEON.

Did the design for the new Raspberry Pi 2 influence the board design of the Model B+ which was released in the middle of last year

Absolutely. James knew the pinout of 2836 before he finalized the design of B+. The main influence was that all the connectors on B+ are very visibly pushed as far as possible towards the edge of the board to make room for the extra routing between 2836 and the SDRAM.

The arrival of the new board also marks the Foundation’s move into the US educational space with Matt Richardson, the author of Getting Started with the Raspberry Pi,” joining them as their first US-based employee.

“Although Raspberry Pi is already very popular in the United States, we’re working to improve our outreach to schools, libraries, museums, maker spaces, and individual hobbyists. This year, Pi enthusiasts within the US will notice a more robust Raspberry Pi presence at local workshops and events.

I’m so excited that Raspberry Pi 2 Model B is now available and I can’t wait to see what people do with it. Not only does the performance gain make it a much more powerful tool for makers, but it also helps to advance our educational mission by improving the learning experience.” — Matt Richardson, US Evangelist at Raspberry Pi

The education mission behind the Raspberry Pi is often overlooked by the maker community, but it is the driver behind the release of the new board.

“…we’re a not for profit, we exist to try and get kids programming.”— Eben Upton

The increase in performance between the original Model B, and today’s new board, means that the new Raspberry Pi 2 is a much more viable as a general purpose computer.

The new board is available today at the same price as the Model B+, and will sit alongside the three current Pi’s — the original Model B, the Model B+ and the Model A+ — which will all continue in distribution.

“We don’t end of life. As long as people want to buy Raspberry Pi Model B‘s, we’ll keep making Raspberry Pi Model B‘s…” — Eben Upton

While there doesn’t seem to my any intention — at least in the short term — to replace the Raspberry Pi Model A+, which sits at the low end of the Pi range retailing at just $20, with a Raspberry Pi 2, Model A, the same thing was said about the Model B+ and look what happened there..?

52 thoughts on “RPi Founder Eben Upton Talks About the New Raspberry Pi 2

  1. Microsoft announces Windows support for the Raspberry Pi | MAKE says:

    […] the announcement of the next generation of Raspberry Pi board—the Raspberry Pi 2 Model B—is the news from Microsoft that the new board will be supported by […]

  2. Exclusive First Look: Hands On With the Fast, Powerful Raspberry Pi 2 | MAKE says:

    […] the Raspberry Pi Foundation announced the Raspberry Pi 2, Model B. Make: has been able to play with the tiny new computer for a week and let us tell you, the new Pi […]

  3. RPi Founder Eben Upton Talks About the New Raspberry Pi 2 | Raspberry World says:

    […] By Alasdair Allan […]

  4. Raspberry Pi 2 | pi-buch.info says:

    […] Interview mit Eben Upton auf makezine.com […]

  5. RPi Founder Eben Upton Talks About the New Raspberry Pi 2 | NerdlyNews says:

    […] Read more on MAKE […]

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    […] Make RPi Founder Eben Upton Talks About the New Raspberry Pi 2 […]

  10. Raspberry Pi 2 – news round-up | Raspberry Pi Pod says:

    […] Alasdair Allan has written a piece over on Make in which he interviews Eben Upton about the new board – well worth a read if you want more technical detail about the new board. Read it here. […]

  11. rahlquist says:

    They exist to get kids programming, and that is a noble goal, yet they continue to pass over Android. I understand there has been difficulty getting video acceleration working but think about this.

    If I make a proprietary programmable toaster but the code only runs on the toaster, then the benefit of getting someone to learn how to code on it is limited, the kids will see it and go, “Oh, yeah I can make this do some cool stuff”. But only other people with that toaster can use what I have done.

    Give them the ability to learn to code on a device supporting Android and many more will want one, so they can make apps for their (and their friends) phones. Being able to code on a standard Linux platform is a great skill, but from the mind of the youth, being able to code something they can share with others, who don’t have the Pi Passion(and hardware), that would be priceless and bring a whole new level of enthusiasm to the mix.

    1. Brendan says:

      Cubieboards can run a version of android. http://www.buyapi.ca/cubieboard-and-cubietruck-in-canada/

    2. Martin Sundhaug says:

      RPi pre 2 had an ARM6-processor which is far too weak to run Android, RPi2 changes that

      1. Alasdair Allan says:

        There is actually a community Android port for the Pi, http://androidpi.wikia.com/wiki/Android_Pi_Wiki. But it lacks hardware acceleration, and is nowhere near complete. It does however run just fine, for various values of ‘fine.’

      2. rahlquist says:

        That’s a bit overbroad. The ArmV5, Armv6 and Armv7 have all had Android devices ( http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=24784696&postcount=1 ) based on them, good bad or indifferent speed wise. I think where the weakness was is the hardware acceleration never being available. The unfortunate side effect of having a good GPU is one wants to hide everything behind closed source firmware, drivers and blobs.

    3. Timothy Gray says:

      Programming in Python is 900X easier than the mess that is the Android API programming. Even seasoned programmers have trouble with Android API calls and the lack of documentation as well as incompatibility between revisions.

      1. Alasdair Allan says:

        Not sure what that’s got to do with the Raspberry Pi? The Pi runs Linux, not Android, and you can quite happily write code in Python and run it on the board?

    4. Barry says:

      I’m not sure where you were going with the toaster analogy.
      I was enjoying it, but then you kinda just dropped it half way through the paragraph, Dissapoint.

    5. jsebean says:

      Python will run on Android in that regard, so it’s still a good skill to learn for someone who wants to do basic droid stuff. The foundation doesn’t see any educational benefits of investing time and money in porting Android to the Pi.

      Windows is also coming to the Pi, but that is Microsoft’s decision, not the foundations. Anyone is also free to port Android to the Pi and I’m sure it will be welcomed with open arms by the foundation, but their focus is ultimatly on Raspbian. Most kids diving into programming are not going to be writing complex Android apps at least initially anyway. And the ones who will want to, by then, will have the skills to do so on a real machine where they can fire up a full IDE like Eclipse.

      1. cgalliher says:

        I’m glad to hear that – I think RPi should steer clear of MS – they have opposing philosophies.

  12. stent00 says:

    totally cool, Ive had a model B pi for over 2 years and like that the compatibility has not been broken for us noobs other than updating to get armv7 Great move! Messing with the pi has made me delve into the world of Linux. Even tried out Linux MInt 17.1 on my PC.

  13. Anonymous says:

    […] […]

  14. Henry88 says:

    IMHO the hardest part of programming is to learn the discipline of giving unambiguous instructions – and that can be learned in most any package. Once that is mastered, changing to a new package/language/whatever is relatively easy.

  15. Feb 2015 week 1 | 19094vancouver says:

    […] MAKE magazine RPi Founder Eben Upton Talks About the New Raspberry Pi 2 https://makezine.com/2015/02/02/eben-upton-raspberry-pi-2 […]

  16. Raspberry Pi Version 2 | kofler.info says:

    […] Interview mit Eben Upton auf makezine.com […]

  17. Mike says:

    It is quite surprising Eben doesn’t think ethernet and USB sharing the bus doesn’t matter or even that gigabit wouldn’t be a significant upgrade. These benchmarks about SATA and gigabit strongly suggest otherwise: http://www.htpcguides.com/raspberry-vs-banana-pi-benchmarks-sata-gigabit-matter/

    1. Bob Jameson says:

      This is the first thing I checked as well. I guess we are expecting too much on a product designed for learning. It would have been perfect for an audiophile music server. Going back to CuBox now…

      1. Alasdair Allan says:

        All about priorities I guess, I sort of have to agree with Eben. While personally I’d find it useful, Gigabit Ethernet doesn’t really forward the mission of the Foundation to educate kids. Therefore it’s an expensive—and backwards compatibility breaking—chip change. From their perspective maintaining backwards compatibility and keeping the board less expensive is far more important.

  18. Rotor says:

    I think this upgrade will push forward development of Raspberry Pi based autopilots for copters. We got to make Raspberry Pi 2 fly! Maybe using Navio+ HAT from http://www.emlid.com

  19. *Taps monitor* – is this thing on? | Raspberry Pi says:

    […] Make magazine also did a very jolly performance test, which should help illustrate to B and B+ owners just how much more oomph the Pi 2 has. […]

  20. pi 2 see | Bruce's Blog says:

    […] Make magazine also did a very jolly performance test, which should help illustrate to B and B+ owners just how much more oomph the Pi 2 has. […]

  21. Raspberry Pi 2 reading notes | tlfong01 says:
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  23. Raspbmc not booting on Pi 2 | DL-UAT says:

    […] According to this: […]

  24. Saran says:

    This premise the author made:

    So from today you should be able to ‘apt-get upgrade’ on an existing Raspbian installation to add an ARMv7 kernel to your distribution. The SD card can then be used — assuming it’s a Micro SD Card — to boot either a first or second generation Pi.

    is, unfortunately, incorrect. That procedure can never update the firmware and kernel modules — which is needed for ARMv7 to be able to boot/run.

    My SOLUTION can be found on the raspberrypi.stackexchange site:
    http://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/questions/27395/raspbmc-not-booting-on-pi-2/27401#27401

    and on Google+:
    https://plus.google.com/u/0/102842919332120491949/posts/jT7A4G8PP6v

  25. StackLinux says:

    The Raspberry Pi 2 can also be overclocked: http://haydenjames.io/raspberry-pi-2-overclock/

    1. Aaron C says:

      Overclocking my 2 even 100Mhz resulted in instability, even at normal temps and trying higher voltage. So while the capability is there, the practicality might not be on all chips. Probably depends on the individual one you get.

  26. Is the new Raspberry Pi 2 Camera Shy? | Make: says:

    […] on it about a week or so before the release when I went to the Foundation’s offices to interview Eben Upton — the founder of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, and now CEO of the Raspberry Pi trading company […]

  27. 与树莓派基金会创始人Eben Upton畅谈新一代Raspberry Pi 2 | 开源杂志 says:

    […] Via […]

  28. cgalliher says:

    We’re a school and are very interested in working in collaboration with the Raspberry Foundation. Let me know if we can work together.

  29. Entrevistas a Eben Upton Raspberry Pi | Raspberry para torpes says:

    […] Eben Upton, creador de la Raspberry Pi. Las fuentes son las entrevistas de Javier Pastor en Xataka, Makezine y Linux.com. Además es interesante leer la opinión personal de Javier sobre este mismo […]

  30. Happy Birthday To The Raspberry Pi | Make: says:

    […] old today and in those three years over five million have been sold, and amazingly—thanks to the launch of the new Raspberry Pi 2—ten percent of these have been in the last three weeks. From humble beginnings on Eben and Liz […]

  31. RPi Founder Eben Upton Talks About the New Raspberry Pi 2 | Make: | says:
  32. clash of clans hacks says:

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  33. Raspberry Pi 2 Mini PC Discussed By Creator Eben Upton | Electronics & Gadgets says:

    […] Supply: MAKE […]

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  35. Make: Japan | Raspberry Pi財団の創設者 Eben Uptonに聞くRaspberry Pi 2 says:

    […] [原文] […]

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  37. Make: Japan | 速くてパワフルなRaspberry Pi 2 says:

    […] Raspberry Pi財団は、Raspberry Pi 2 Model Bを発表した。MAKE:では1週間前からこの小さな新型コンピューターで遊んでいたので、その内容を報告しよう。とにかく新しいRaspberry Piは速い。ほんとに速い。 […]

  38. Eben Upton Talks About the new Raspberry Pi 3 | Make: says:

    […] over the USB bus using the LAN9154. This hasn’t changed on the new board, but Eben has been quoted on record several times that he doesn’t see this as a […]

  39. Make: Japan | Eben Upton(Raspberry Pi財団創設者)に聞いたRaspberry Pi 3 says:

    […] 大きな不満のひとつに、Raspberry PiへのEthernetの実装方法がある。LAN9154を使って、EthernetのトラフィックはUSBバスを通るようになっている。これは新型になっても変わらなかった。だがUptonは何度も繰り返し話しているが、問題視はしていないという。 […]

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Alasdair Allan is a scientist, author, hacker and tinkerer, who is spending a lot of his time thinking about the Internet of Things. In the past he has mesh networked the Moscone Center, caused a U.S. Senate hearing, and contributed to the detection of what was—at the time—the most distant object yet discovered.

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