Raspberry Pi 3 now available to order from RS Components and Allied Electronics: latest generation low-cost computer board raises the bar with higher performance, 64-bit support and wireless connectivity

          Building upon the phenomenal success of its predecessors – the Raspberry Pi 1 Model B+ and Raspberry Pi 2 Model B -- the Raspberry Pi 3 has significantly upgraded processing capabilities to deliver 50% more performance than Raspberry Pi 2 and approximately ten times more than the original Raspberry Pi 1, allowing it to run even higher-end applications.

          The board is based on the Broadcom BCM2837 SoC, which includes an ARM Cortex-A53 quad-core processor running at 1.2GHz, alongside a BCM43438 combo connectivity device, which provides 802.11b/g/n wireless LAN, Bluetooth Classic and Bluetooth Low Energy. BCM2837 integrates a dual-core VideoCore IV multimedia coprocessor, which provides the following:

          - 1.2Gpixels/s of fill rate, 1.8Gtexel/s of texturing rate 
          - 29GFLOPs of shader compute throughput 
          - OpenGL ES 1.1/2.0 support 
          - 1080p60 hardware video decoding 
          - 1080p30 hardware video encoding 
          - A hardware image sensor pipeline

          The Raspberry Pi 3 boots from a micro SD card and uses the NOOBS (New Out Of the Box Software) installation manager. The standard Raspbian operating system install comes bundled with a range of productivity applications, and programming tools including Node-RED; this visual tool provides support for wiring together hardware devices, APIs and online services, making the board ideal for the rapid development and prototyping of IoT projects.

          Retaining the same footprint as previous Raspberry Pi incarnations -- with its credit-card-sized dimensions of 85 x 56 x 17mm -- the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B retains many of the same features and capabilities of the previous generation. These include: the extensive 40-pin GPIO (General Purpose Input Output) connector; four USB connector port; full-HD HDMI; 10/100 Ethernet; 3.5mm audio jack and composite video; camera (CSI-2) and display (DSI) interfaces; and micro-SD card slot. Power input to the board is via its micro-USB socket requiring an external, plug-in power supply unit (PSU).

          "We are unveiling the third-generation Raspberry Pi four years to the day after the launch of the original Raspberry Pi board on February 29, 2012," said Eben Upton, founder of Raspberry Pi. "It also marks the four-year anniversary of our highly successful relationship with RS and Allied, which have played a significant role in its success as leading and trusted sources of products, technologies and information for professional engineers, hobbyists and those looking to make their first steps into the work of programming."

          "Raspberry Pi has taken another important step in its evolution," said Lindsley Ruth, Chief Executive Officer at Electrocomponents. "Based on the robust and well proven combination of hardware and software of the Raspberry Pi platform, this latest generation board delivers even more processing power together with embedded wireless connectivity, plus software to make it easy for businesses or individuals to develop applications for the Internet of Things. RS and Allied are honoured to once again embark upon another new chapter as a distribution partner for the Raspberry Pi Foundation."

          The new Raspberry Pi 3 offered by RS and Allied is manufactured exclusively in the UK under licence by the distributor. A Raspberry Pi 3 Compute Module I/O Board will also be available shortly from RS and Allied, enabling OEMs to develop their own Raspberry Pi 3 based solutions for many industrial applications.

          About RS Components and Allied Electronics

          RS Components and Allied Electronics are the trading brands of Electrocomponents plc, the global distributor for engineers. With operations in 32 countries, we offer more than 500,000 products through the internet, catalogues and at trade counters to over one million customers, shipping around 44,000 parcels a day. Our products, sourced from 2,500 leading suppliers, include electronic components, electrical, automation and control, and test and measurement equipment, and engineering tools and consumables.

          Electrocomponents is listed on the London Stock Exchange and in the last financial year ended 31 March 2015 had revenues of GBP1.27bn.

          For more information, please visit the website at www.rs-online.com.

          RS Components
          Tan Soo Chun
          Public Relations Manager - Asia Pacific
          Email: [email protected]  
          Telephone: +65-6430-3324

          Edelman Public Relations (Singapore)
          Teoh Seet Heng
          Manager
          Email: [email protected]
          Telephone: +65-6347-2355

          Further information is available via these links:
 

          @RSElectronics; @alliedelec; @designsparkRS

          RS Components on Linkedin
          http://www.linkedin.com/company/rs-components 
 

          RS Components on Weibo
          http://e.weibo.com/u/3206377000?type=0

          Relevant Links:

          Electrocomponents plc
          www.electrocomponents.com

          RS Components
          www.rs-online.com/

          DesignSpark
          www.designspark.com

          Photo - http://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20150813/8521504906LOGO  
          Photo - http://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20160229/8521601293-a  
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