The pandemic has resulted in significant production shortages for many types of products, particularly those that rely on microchips. But, presently some Raspberry Pi developer boards have become difficult to find, with the company announcing supply chain shortages.
The developer of the Raspberry Pi has stated that they and their partners at Sony had worked hard to keep the components needed to build the developer boards coming into the factory, but still have been impacted by supply chain shortages and only about 7 million Raspberry Pi developers boards will be built in 2021.
The company says that there’s the same output they had in 2020. Due to low production levels, there have been some shortages of specific products which include the Raspberry Pi Zero and the Raspberry Pi 4 with 2GB of RAM and Raspberry Pi has confirmed that it expects supply chain issues to continue through most of 2022.
These shortages will surely impact older products that are built on 40 nm process technology which means for fans of the development board is that products other than the Raspberry Pi 4, Raspberry Pi 400, or Compute Module 4 will be in short supply.
The price changes will see the Raspberry Pi 4 2GB temporarily move to $45 which marks a $10 increase from its $35 standard price because of the current shortage says CEO Eben Upton. Raspberry Pi is clear that the product is not economically possible at the $35 price point, but promises that $45 is only temporary.
The 4GB Raspberry Pi 4 and 8GB Raspberry Pi 4 versions will be available at their previous costs which were $55 and $75, respectively. The company is also reinstating the 1GB Raspberry Pi 4 for $35 and the company will make changes to help customers who are buying Raspberry Pi for businesses continue to be successful over the next year.
Raspberry Pi adds that it’s deprioritizing production of the Raspberry Pi 3B Plus, and is advising customers to shift to the 1GB Pi 4 if they want to ensure uninterrupted availability.
