6000-ADA Adafruit Feather RP2350 with HSTX Port
The RP2350 Feather is a versatile development board in the Feather format, compatible with all FeatherWings and designed for battery-powered applications. It features 8MB of flash memory, a 22-pin HSTX output port, Stemma QT connector, debug SWD, and an optional PSRAM slot, making it a powerful platform for a wide range of projects. This is the first RP2350-based board in this form factor, offering an excellent upgrade for users familiar with the Pico 2.
The RP2350 is Raspberry Pi's second microcontroller, following the success of the RP2040. It upgrades the dual M0 cores to dual M33 cores with a 150 MHz clock speed, delivering roughly twice the performance, especially with the addition of hardware floating point support. It also doubles the SRAM to 520KB, which improves performance for memory-heavy tasks like MicroPython or CircuitPython development, as well as IoT projects requiring large buffer spaces.
The RP2350 introduces several key improvements, including a third PIO block (for a total of three), TrustZone secure boot, and the High-Speed Transmit (HSTX) peripheral for driving differential data transmission across 4 lanes, such as DVI output, without overclocking or relying on PIO.
For peripherals, the RP2350 supports two I2C controllers, two SPI controllers, and two UARTs, multiplexed across the GPIO pins (check the pinout for details). It also offers 24 PWM channels, each assignable to different pins.
Feather RP2350 HSTX Specifications:
- Measures 2.0" x 0.9" x 0.28" (50.8mm x 22.8mm x 7mm) without headers soldered in
- Light as a (large?) feather - 5 grams
- RP2350 32-bit Cortex M33 dual core running at 150 MHz @ 3.3V logic and power
- 520 KB RAM + 8 KB OTP memory
- 8 MB SPI FLASH chip for storing files and CircuitPython/MicroPython code storage. No EEPROM
- Optional spot for SOIC PSRAM chip with chip select line on GPIO 8
- Tons of GPIO! 29 x GPIO pins with following capabilities:
- 21 GPIO available on the Feather header pins, 8 more 'consecutive' GPIO available on the HSTX connector (you don't have to use them with the HSTX peripheral)
- Four 12-bit ADCs (one more than Pico 2)
- Two I2C, Two SPI, and two UART peripherals, we label one for the 'main' interface in standard Feather locations
- 24 x PWM outputs - for servos, LEDs, etc
- Built-in 200mA+ lipoly charger with charging status indicator LED. For non-rechargeable battery usage the charger can be disabled by cutting a jumper trace on the back.
- Pin #7 red LED for general purpose blinking
- RGB NeoPixel for full-color indication.
- On-board STEMMA QT connector that lets you quickly connect any Qwiic, STEMMA QT or Grove I2C devices with no soldering!
- Both Reset button and Bootloader select button for quick restarts (no unplugging-replugging to relaunch code)
- 3.3V Power/enable pin
- Pico Probe 3-pin JST SH connector for SWD debugging
- 4 mounting holes
- 12 MHz crystal for perfect timing.
- 3.3V regulator with 500mA peak current output
- USB Type C connector lets you access built-in ROM USB bootloader and serial port debugging
The RP2350 includes a permanent ROM USB UF2 bootloader, making it easy to upload new firmware. To enter bootloader mode, hold down the BOOTSEL button while plugging the board into a USB port, or pull the RUN/Reset pin to ground. It will appear as a USB drive, allowing you to drag and drop the firmware. This process is similar to what’s used on other native-USB boards, like those from Adafruit. Note that, unlike some devices where you double-click reset, you'll need to hold down BOOTSEL during boot to access the bootloader.
The RP2350 supports multiple development environments, including robust C/C++ support, unofficial Arduino support, an official MicroPython port, and CircuitPython. For beginners, CircuitPython is a great option, as it provides easy access to a wide range of drivers, displays, and sensors, making it simple to follow along with tutorials and projects.
While the RP2350 has ample onboard RAM, it lacks built-in flash memory. Instead, this board includes an 8MB external QSPI flash chip, shared between the program and file storage in MicroPython or CircuitPython. In Python, around 7MB of space is available for code, files, and other assets. For C/C++ users, the entire flash memory is available for use.
RP2350 Chip features:
- Dual ARM Cortex-M33 with floating point unit or Dual RISC-V @ 150MHz
- 520 kB on-chip SRAM
- 8 kB of one-time-programmable (OTP) memory.
- Support for up to 16MB of off-chip Flash memory via dedicated QSPI bus
- Support for external QSPI PSRAM
- DMA controller, 16 channel, 4 IRQ
- Fully-connected AHB crossbar
- On-chip switched-mode power supply and programmable low-dropout regulator (LDO) to generate core voltage
- Two on-chip PLLs to generate 48 MHz USB and 150MHz core clocks
- Optional boot signing with protected OTP storage
- Hardware SHA-256 accelerator
- Hardware random number generator (TRNG)
- 30 GPIO pins, 4 of which can be used as analog inputs
- Peripherals
- 2 UARTs
- 2 SPI controllers
- 2 I2C controllers
- 24 PWM channels (compared to 16 on RP2040)
- USB 1.1 controller and PHY, with host and device support
- 12 PIO state machines
Please note: The Adafruit Feather RP2350 HSTX comes with the A2 version of the RP2350, which is affected by the E9 erratum. This errata affects some uses of GPIO and PIO such as high-impedance inputs and the internal pulldowns. You may need to use 8.2K or smaller resistors if pull-downs are required.
Links:
WARNING
