The move follows numerous requests from OEMs for customised versions of the Raspberry Pi boards, according to Richard Curtin, Premier Farnell’s global director for strategic alliances.
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Element 14 guesses that, initially, most customisation options will be for 3000 to 5000 boards – depending on how many changes they require to the current Raspberry Pi system.
He said that a large fraction of the three million Raspberry Pi units sold over the past year or so had gone to manufacturers in order to automate factory processes and be embedded into products, and that a profusion of small businesses has sprung up using the Raspberry Pi to build products at a relatively small scale. “Together with the training provided by Broadcom and Raspberry Pi Trading, element14 has access to over 200 design engineers to evaluate customers’ needs and provide bespoke Raspberry Pi-based designs to meet their requirements”, said the distributor. A similar phenomenon occurred in the mid-80s when the IBM PC architecture was began to be incorporated into SBCs like the Ampro Little Board/PC and standardized architectures like PC/104.
Applications for new, customized versions of the Raspberry Pi are expected to include Internet of Things (IoT) devices, energy management, industrial, and end-consumer devices.
Raspberry Pi is looking to expand, and it has announced that it will be offering businesses custom-made and mass-produced micro-computers.
A handful of unsanctioned Raspberry Pi knock-offs have already appeared over the past couple of years, including various Orange Pi and Banana Pi flavors (shown below).
While nothing is stopping individuals from customizing their own Raspberry Pi board, the costs associated with design and configuration make it much more useful for companies that want the device to be mass-produced. However, end users could benefit when there custom boards become available.
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Element14 has been building the Raspberry Pi devices since 2012, but the latest shift is all about catering specifically for a new market.
