The Raspberry Pi Foundation have announced the Raspberry Pi A+. The A+ has an (Altoids compliant) board size of 66 x 56 x 14 mm, uses the neater micro SD card socket, ditches the Ethernet port and has just one USB port. Like the earlier model A it has a RAM size of 256 MB but now includes the 40 pin GPIO expansion header to allow for plug-in HAT expansion boards.

The main features of the A+ are:

  • 700MHz Broadcom BCM2835 CPU with 256MB RAM
  • 40pin extended GPIO
  • 1 x USB 2 port
  • 4 pole Stereo output and Composite video port
  • Full size HDMI
  • CSI camera port for connecting the Raspberry Pi camera
  • DSI display port for connecting the Raspberry Pi touch screen display
  • Micro SD port for loading your operating system and storing data
  • Micro USB power source
  • Smaller board footprint and is fully HAT compatible
  • Stream and watch Hi-definition video output at 1080P
  • Combined 4-pole jack for connecting your stereo audio out and composite video out

Note that it identifies the display connector DSI as suitable for the yet to be announced ‘Raspberry Pi touch screen’. Eben Upton was recently seen demonstrating a 7 inch WVGA touch panel which makes use of this connector. If all goes to plan expect to see the display hitting the shelves before the end of the year.

The power supply section uses the more efficient switch-mode regulators also introduced in the B+ model so we can expect power consumption of this new board to be lower than the original A model.

Order your RPi A+ from Elektor