Today, Farnell, the manufacturing partner of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, announced a new generation of the Raspberry Pi single-board computer. The Broadcom chip BCM2711 now contains four Cortex-A72 cores instead of the previous four Cortex-A53 cores. The clock frequency is only marginally different. While it is 1.4 GHz on the predecessor Raspberry Pi 3 B+, the Raspi 4 clocks at 1.5 GHz. With the Cortex-A53 cores, however, ARM focused its development on energy efficiency, while with the A72 cores the emphasis is on performance. The new Raspberry Pi should therefore deliver two to three times the computing performance of its predecessor. However, the power consumption does not increase to this extent, as Broadcom manufactures the new BCM2711 SoC with 28 nm, compared to 40 nm for its predecessor. There are no exact comparative values for the power consumption, but the power supply unit must deliver a minimum of 5 V/3 A for the Raspberry 4, whereas the Raspberry 3 still managed with 2.5 A. A fan should still not be necessary, but a heat sink is recommended for heavy loads.

However, there are also important innovations on the peripherals: here, it is primarily the RAM equipment that should provide a performance boost. In future, customers will be able to choose between 1 (as before), 2 and 4 GB of memory. This means that the Raspberry Pi 4 is equipped for memory-intensive applications in areas such as AI or multimedia, but can also be used with less RAM in cost-sensitive IoT applications.

A pro pos multimedia: The 4 Series can now control two independent displays. The maximum resolution is 4K at 60 Hz. The large HDMI connector gives way to two smaller micro HDMI ports. The graphics unit supports OpenGL 3.0 (previously 2.0) and decodes videos in H.265 (4Kp60) or H.264 format (1080p60). It can compress 1080p video signals in H.264 at a maximum of 30 Hz.

Faster I/O

Two of the four USB 2.0 ports have been upgraded to USB 3.0, meaning that data rates of up to 5 Gbit/s are now possible - useful for SSDs, for example. The USB ports no longer have to share the internal bus with the Ethernet interface, meaning that Ethernet performance - although still nominally at 1 Gbit/s - should also benefit.

Nothing has changed in terms of WLAN, which remains dual-band with 2.4 and 5 GHz. The SD card slot and a camera input according to MIPI-CSI are also standard. The Bluetooth LE module makes a leap from 4.0 to 5.0. According to the data sheet, the wireless modules are "pre-certified", which should make it easier to integrate the Raspberry Pi 4 into end products.

The GPIO header contains additional serial interfaces. However, as these are connected using the multiplex method, the 40-pin contact strip remains downwards compatible. The supply voltage can be supplied either via a USB type C socket or the GPIO header. Peripheral devices can draw up to 900 mA via USB or be supplied via Power-over-Ethernet (with an optional PoE HAT).

Thanks to the downward-compatible GPIO header, all existing peripherals can continue to be used. However, if existing Raspi users want to update their application with the new board, they will need a new housing with suitable cut-outs and a more powerful power supply unit due to the different display connectors.

Availability is still unclear at the moment. According to Farnell, the new board is "immediately available", but is shown as unavailable in the webshop. RS Components, also a distribution partner of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, states "available from September 2019".