A new milestone of Industrial IoT might come to life in this year. The successor of Raspberry Pi Compute Module 3+, working named Compute Module 4, will certainly draw from Raspberry Pi 4 B features, such as new Cortex-A72 processor (Broadcom BCM2711) and multiple RAM/eMMC options. Rumours say, that we may also see Gigabit Ethernet and USB3.0/3.1 support, since it was a main drawback in previous models.
First Rasbperry Pi 1B model had it’s analogy in industrial Compute Module 1 after almost 2 years from it’s premiere. Compute Module 2 was probably omitted because the change from RPi1 to RPI2 mainly involved a minor change of the processor (Cortex-A7 900MHz), which was almost immediately replaced with Cortex-A53 1.2GHz in Raspberry Pi 3.
The premiere of Compute Module 3 occured a year after RPI 3 announcement, providing a significant boost of industrial market solutions. Since Raspberry Pi 4 was a great success in 2019, we might see it’s equivalent in industrial series of Raspberry Pi – Compute Module 4. A possible release date of Raspberry Pi’s Compute Module 4 is mid-2020.
Raspberry Pi is gaining recognition in Industry
Almost a year ago, in the beginning of 2019, Raspberry Pi Foundation presented Raspberry Pi Compute Module 3+, a successor to previous CM3 version of development board, aimed at businesses and industrial users. The Compute Module uses a standard DDR2 SODIMM (small outline dual in-line memory module) form factor. GPIO and other I/O functions are routed through the 200 pins on the board.
Only a few months later, in June 2019, came big premiere of Raspberry Pi 4 Model B, the long-awaited successor of customer RPi3+. With new processor, larger RAM options and many input/output changes, became new standard in small, embedded PC world.
It seems a matter of time before the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 3+ will get its own successor, probably called Compute Module 4, a new milestone of professional embedded IoT module. What might be the specification of this highly expected development board?
Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 specification forecast
Compute Module 4 specifications probably will look like these:
- Broadcom BCM2711, Quad core Cortex-A72 @ 1.5GHz will highly plausible replace previous Broadcom BCM2837B0, Cortex-A53 64-bit SoC @ 1.2GHz,
- 1GB, 2GB or 4GB LPDDR4-3200 SDRAM will become a standard options, instead of fixed 1GB LPDDR2 SDRAM,
- Current flash memory (eMMC) options: 8GB / 16GB / 32GB from CM3+ will probably stay the same,
- H.265 (4kp60 decode), H264 (1080p60 decode, 1080p30 encode) might replace outdated H.264 (1080p30)
- and OpenGL ES 3.0 graphics will replace 1.1, 2.0 versions,
- weight and factor will stay the same, to provide a possibility to upgrade current IoT applications of CM3 and CM3+
A Lite 4 version of Compute Module is to be expected too, without eMMC and probably limited SDRAM options.
With much higher performance, the new Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 will, for sure, support Gigabit Ethernet, USB 3.0 expansions. We might even see wider working temperature range, if Raspberry Pi Foundation decides to make some hardware changes, to follow, for example, ESP32 – used in end-point IoT automation.
Industrial use of Compute Module
With Compute Module 3+ options from Raspberry Pi, TECHBASE upgraded their ModBerry 500/9500 industrial computers. From now on the ModBerry 500/9500 can be supported with extended eMMC, up to 32GB. Higher memory volume brings new features available for ModBerry series.
Higher performance of ModBerry 500/9500 with extended eMMC flash memory, up to 32GB , powered by quad-core Cortex A53 processor allows the device to smoothly run Windows 10 IoT Core system, opening up many possibilities for data management, remote control and visualisation.
