The Raspberry Pi Foundation is adding a new device to its suite of miniature computers for industrial and enterprise customers. The charity today unveiled the Pi Compute Module 3+ (CM3+), successor to the two-year-old Compute Module 3 (CM3). The Pi Compute Module 3+ comes in four variants, starting at $25.
The Raspberry Pi Compute Module is derived from the CM3 board but offers better thermal behavior under load. That’s possible because of the Broadcom’s 64-bit BCM2837B0 application processor, which was also used in last year’s Raspberry Pi 3B+, and 1GB of LPDDR2 RAM. The CM3+ draws heat away from the processor faster than the CM3 and is rated to support temperatures between -20°C and 70°C (-4°F and 158°F).
The foundation says it has capped the clock speed of the processor at 1.2GHz, rather than the 1.4GHz offered on Pi 3B+, due to power supply limitations. The Compute Module 3+ is the last in a line of 40nm-based Raspberry Pi Products. On the sidelines of today’s announcement, the foundation said it no longer recommends the CM1, CM3, and CM3 Lite products for new design. The CM3+, which is now on sale in multiple markets, will be available until at least January 2026.
The difference between the four variants resides in their storage limits. The CM3+ Lite does not offer a built-in eMMC Flash, whereas other variants include 8GB ($30), 16GB ($35), and 32GB ($40) of eMMC Flash. These eMMC flash chips are more reliable and robust than normal SD cards, the foundation claims.
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“Our aim for the Compute Module was to deliver the core Raspberry Pi technology in a form factor that allowed others to incorporate it into their own products cheaply and easily,” said James Adams, COO of Raspberry Pi Foundation, in a blog post. Unlike standard Raspberry Pi models, the Compute Module lineup is aimed at enterprise companies, such as set-top box vendors.
“If someone wanted to create a Raspberry Pi-based product but found the Model A or B Raspberry Pi boards did not fit their needs, they could use a Compute Module, create a simple low-tech carrier PCB, and make their own thing,” Adams added.
The Raspberry Foundation also unveiled the Compute Module 3+ Development Kit, which includes one lite variant of the miniature computer, a variant with 32GB eMMC flash, and a CM IO board, camera and display adapters, jumper wires, and a programming cable. You can read detailed technical specifications for all the variants on the foundation’s documentation site (PDF).
