Raspberry Pi has introduced a successor to last year’s Pico, a $4 microcontroller based on the RP2040 chip the company designed itself. The new model is called the Pico W.

Raspberry Pi Pico 2 is faster and backward-compatible, still only $5 The second generation of the popular hobbyist chip just dropped and it has significantly more power than its predecessor.

The tiny Raspberry Pi Pico is the little circuit board that could, with projects available that are usually handled by the larger Raspberry models.

The Pico provides options for your Raspberry Pi projects, but what's the difference between it and and the Pico W?

Raspberry Pi Pico W Image: Raspberry Pi Priced between the original and the Pico W is the $5 Pico H, which adds pre-populated headers and a 3-pin debug connector to the original Pico.

Raspberry Pi details the three-year journey behind its new RP2040 chip, which was designed in-house and manufactured by iPhone chipmaker TSMC.

The Pico is the first microcontroller board from Raspberry Pi and has been built around the new, custom RP2040 chip.

Raspberry Pi releases the Pi Pico and is partnering with Arduino and Adafruit to expand the ecosystem around Raspberry Pi's own silicon.