Getting started with Raspberry Pi

Raspberry Pi Pico is a low-cost, high-performance microcontroller board built on silicon with flexible digital interfaces.

Whether you choose to use the C/C++ SDK or the official MicroPython port, everything you need to get started is available here.

Key features:

RP2040 microcontroller chip designed by Raspberry Pi in the UK
Dual-core Arm Cortex M0+ processor, flexible clock running up to 133 MHz
Up to 264KB of SRAM and 2MB of on-board Flash memory
Castellated module allows soldering direct to carrier boards
USB 1.1 with device and host support
Low-power sleep and dormant modes
Drag-and-drop programming using mass storage over USB
26 × multi-function GPIO pins
2 × SPI, 2 × I2C, 2 × UART, 3 × 12-bit ADC, 16 × controllable PWM channelsAccurate clock and timer on-chip
Temperature sensor
Accelerated floating-point libraries on-chip
8 × Programmable I/O (PIO) state machines for custom peripheral suppo

Utilities
If you have forgotten what has been programmed into your Raspberry Pi Pico, and the program was built using our Pico C/C++ SDK, it will usually have a name and other useful information embedded into the binary.

You can use the Picotool command line utility to find out these details. Full instructions on how to use Picotool to do this are available in the getting started documentation.

Debugging
It’s possible to use one Raspberry Pi Pico to debug another Pico. This is possible via picoprobe, an application that allows a Pico to act as a USB → SWD and UART converter.

This makes it easy to use a Pico on non-Raspberry Pi platforms such as Windows, Mac, and Linux computers where you don’t have GPIOs to connect directly to your Pico. Full instructions on how to use Picoprobe to do this are available here.

Resetting
Pico’s BOOTSEL mode lives in read-only memory inside the RP2040 chip, and can’t be overwritten accidentally. No matter what, if you hold down the BOOTSEL button when you plug in your Pico, it will appear as a drive onto which you can drag a new UF2 file.

There’s no way to brick the board through software. However, there are some circumstances where you might want to make sure your Flash memory is empty. You can do this by dragging and dropping a special UF2 binary onto your Pico when it is in mass storage mode.