element14 has signed a global exclusive agreement with Raspberry Pi Trading to provide design and manufacturing services to OEM customers to create bespoke designs based upon the Raspberry Pi technology platform
This announcement follows a number of customer requests to create customised versions of the Raspberry Pi boards and represents the next phase in the element14 and Raspberry Pi Trading global partnership. Utilising the proven in house design expertise available through its Embest and AVID technology businesses, together with the comprehensive 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 customisation designs to meet their requirements.
The agreement opens up the potential for the Raspberry Pi technology platform to be customised to suit specific customer applications across a wide range of industries and sectors from Internet of Things (IoT) technology to energy management, industrial and end consumer devices. Taking the existing advantages of the Raspberry Pi, such as ease of programming and ability to interact with and control physical devices, it’s easy to envisage how changes to the Raspberry Pi hardware will enable it to be designed in to applications on a commercial scale. Customisations may include reconfiguring the board layout, incorporating additional functionality, redesigning the interfaces, and changing the board and memory configuration. As these will be bespoke designs it is envisaged that order quantities will start in the region of between 3,000 and 5,000 depending upon the nature of the customisation.
Claire Doyle, Global Head of Raspberry Pi at element14, said: “This exclusive partnership extends element14’s world class end-to-end design to manufacturing services to OEM customers, giving them the flexibility to customise any Raspberry Pi board in order to optimise it for a particular design.
“This is an incredibly exciting development for Raspberry Pi Trading, Broadcom and the industry as a whole, which will see boards featuring the Broadcom application processors being designed into end user applications and markets in significant volume.”
Eben Upton, CEO of Raspberry Pi Trading, commented: “We are delighted to announce the appointment of element14 as our global strategic partner for the design and manufacture of custom Raspberry Pi-derived hardware.”
For more information on this announcement or to find out how to customise the Raspberry Pi please visit the website.
