Raspberry Pi's Rising Role in Professional Development Projects

In 2023 the Raspberry Pi Foundation released the Compute Module 3 (CM3), a professional‑grade board that has become a cornerstone in industrial automation, control systems and consumer electronics.

While the Foundation limits use of the Raspberry Pi trademark in commercial marketing, the board’s popularity among companies remains high. In fact, the Foundation estimates that roughly one‑third of all Pis sold are destined for commercial applications.

Element14, one of the leading resellers, reports that the Compute Module accounts for 5% to 10% of its monthly Raspberry Pi sales. “It’s growing, and we can’t forecast its growth enough,” says Peter Wenzel, global director of Raspberry Pi products at element14.

Raspberry Pi was originally conceived to teach children the basics of digital system design. Its robust performance, low cost and ease of use make it an attractive choice for many commercial projects. Early iterations lacked robust communications, sufficient on‑board memory, full‑range temperature tolerance and flexibility for modification.

Those limitations were addressed with the 2014 launch of the first Compute Module. The CM3, introduced in 2017, refined the design, cooled the Broadcom BCM2837 processor, and brought the board to a level suitable for professional use.

According to Nick Powers, application marketing manager at Arrow Electronics, the CM3’s advantage lies in its Broadcom BCM2837 processor. The core is an ARM Cortex‑A53, featuring ample cache and floating‑point units that accelerate data manipulation, especially for advanced mathematics and graphics.

Both CM3 variants use the BCM2837 at up to 1.2 GHz and 1 GB of RAM. The standard version includes 4 GB of on‑board eMMC flash; the Lite version exposes an SD‑card interface, allowing users to select external storage. Prices are $30 for the standard module and $25 for the Lite version.

Newark element14, a Premier Farnell subsidiary, offers the CM3 and custom variations under an exclusive license. It also markets the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+, which features a 1.4 GHz, 64‑bit quad‑core Broadcom BCM2837, 802.11ac Wi‑Fi, Bluetooth 4.2 and improved thermal management.

Beyond its technical merits, the CM3’s plug‑and‑play nature makes it ideal for rapid‑prototyping projects. One of the U.S.’s largest banks chose Raspberry Pi for a quick upgrade to its ATMs, citing the board’s ease of deployment, although the project was ultimately shelved for business reasons.

Although Raspberry Pi began as a learning tool for kids, its versatility now spans from industrial automation to consumer electronics, demonstrating that innovation can come from the most unexpected places.

For more in-depth information on applying the Raspberry Pi in commercial applications, check out these other articles in the AspenCore Special Project:

• Raspberry Pi Quietly Entering Professional Service – The Raspberry Pi’s combination of computer power and low cost has been attracting the interest of professional designers looking for quicker solutions to complex applications.
• Beginner’s Guide to Sensor Interfacing – PIC, Arduino, and Raspberry Pi: If you can work with these three types of systems, then you can connect with just about anything.
• Design solutions: Latest MEMS and Sensor signal conditioning architectures – Signal conditioning options include not only analog operational amplifier solutions but discrete transistor, data converter, microcontroller, and algorithm-based solutions as well.
• Tip of the HAT to the RasPi — A Discussion on the Pi HAT Hardware Specification – The most versatile and powerful way of adding hardware functionality to the Raspberry Pi is to give it a HAT.