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Waveshare RP2350-Zero

Compact RP2350A USB-C module (Waveshare RP2350-Zero): dual Cortex-M33, 520 KB SRAM, 4 MB flash, castellated 18.00 × 23.50 mm board, onboard WS2812 on GP16. Same silicon descriptor as Pico 2; this page is the Zero carrier. USB-C is native USB — there is no UART-bridge chip.

Live status

The tables below are a maintained snapshot. Authoritative automation:

Status at a glance

Aspect Status
Chip descriptor configs/chips/rp2350.yaml
System YAML configs/systems/rp2350-zero.yaml
Example examples/rp2350-zero/
Playground board id rp2350-zero
Reference firmware crates/firmware-rp2350-demo/ (UART0 smoke)
Tier (snapshot) smoke-manual (UART0). No silicon capture.

Pico 2 (GP25 LED, different USB connector) is rp2350.md / examples/pico2/.

Flash / firmware artifact

Use Artifact Notes
Twin / CLI ELF linked at XIP 0x10000000 firmware-rp2350-demo
Bench UF2 Hold BOOT, tap RUN, copy to the UF2 disk
Arduino-Pico waveshare_rp2350_zero Hosted compile id rp2350-zero. Browser flash is not wired (UF2 on the bench).

USB-C is not UART0

The cable is RP2350 USB CDC. Header UART0 is GP0 (TX) / GP1 (RX). The twin sinks UART0 only. USB device enumeration is not modeled.

Twin vs USB cable

Twin USB-C cable
Console UART0 PL011 @ 0x40070000 CDC (desk capture: VID 2e8a PID 0009)
LED board_io LED on SIO GP16 (WS2812 stand-in) WS2812 DIN GP16
Load ELF into XIP UF2

Pins (castellated header, USB-C at top)

Silk from Waveshare wiki pinout + RP2350_Zero.pdf P1 (23 pads). Defaults from pico-sdk waveshare_rp2350_zero.h. Authored drawing: examples/rp2350-zero/images/pinout.svg.

Right edge (top → bottom)

Silk GPIO Default (pico-sdk)
GP0 GPIO0 UART0 TX
GP1 GPIO1 UART0 RX
GP2 GPIO2
GP3 GPIO3
GP4 GPIO4
GP5 GPIO5
GP6 GPIO6 I2C1 SDA
GP7 GPIO7 I2C1 SCL

Bottom edge (left → right)

Silk GPIO Default (pico-sdk)
GP13 GPIO13 SPI1 CSN
GP12 GPIO12 SPI1 RX
GP11 GPIO11 SPI1 TX
GP10 GPIO10 SPI1 SCK
GP9 GPIO9
GP8 GPIO8

Left edge (top → bottom)

Silk GPIO Notes
5V — VBUS
GND —
3V3 — ME6217 3.3 V
GP29 GPIO29 ADC3
GP28 GPIO28 ADC2
GP27 GPIO27 ADC1
GP26 GPIO26 ADC0
GP15 GPIO15
GP14 GPIO14

Onboard / solder (not the 20-pin header)

Silk GPIO Notes
WS2812 DIN GPIO16 Used. Twin: led_gp16 stand-in. Not a free header GPIO.
GP17–GP25 GPIO17–25 Underside solder points (9 GPIOs + GND). Schematic P2/P3.
SWCLK / SWDIO debug Pads; no onboard probe.
BOOT / RUN — UF2 entry: BOOT then RUN.

Always confirm with labwired_describe once the playground id exists.

Support matrix

Mark Meaning
✅ Modeled well enough for the demos we ship
⚠️ Present but partial, stubbed, or easy to misuse
❌ Not simulated — use the bench

Core & boot

Block Status Notes
Cortex-M33 core 0 ✅ thumbv8m.main-none-eabi smoke ELF
Core 1 / SIO FIFO ❌ Not a dual-core product story
Hazard3 RISC-V ❌ Unmodeled
TrustZone ❌ Unmodeled
Bootrom / IMAGE_DEF / UF2 ❌ Twin loads ELF. Bench uses UF2.
rp2350 clocks/resets ✅ Moved APB map vs RP2040

Console, GPIO, LED

Block Status Notes
UART0 ✅ Twin console. Header GP0/GP1 — not the USB cable.
USB CDC / USB device ❌ Bench only
SIO GPIO ⚠️ Enough for the GP16 LED stand-in
WS2812 on GP16 ⚠️ Stand-in LED. PIO/WS2812 timing not claimed
ADC GP26–29 ⚠️ Partial analog

Buses

Block Status Notes
I2C0/1, SPI0/1 ⚠️ RP2040-lane models on RP2350 bases
PIO0/1/2 ⚠️ v1-compatible only; v2-only ops unmodeled
DMA, PWM, TIMER0, WATCHDOG ⚠️ See chip page

Firmware that touches unmodeled MMIO will hit MemoryAccessViolation or poll forever — that is intentional.

What it catches vs what needs a bench

Twin is strong for: UART0 bring-up of an RP2350 Thumb ELF; GP16 as a digital LED stand-in; deterministic CLI oracles that match UART0.

Needs the bench: anything on USB CDC, UF2 boot, WS2812 color, SWD register parity, PIO v2, dual-core.

How to run

CLI

RUSTFLAGS="-C link-arg=-Tlink.x" cargo build -p firmware-rp2350-demo \
  --release --target thumbv8m.main-none-eabi
cargo run -q -p labwired-cli -- test \
  --script examples/rp2350-zero/uart-smoke.yaml \
  --output-dir out/rp2350-zero/uart-smoke \
  --no-uart-stdout

Details: examples/rp2350-zero/VALIDATION.md.

Playground

Board id rp2350-zero on app.labwired.com. USB CDC on the cable is still unmodeled — serial in the twin is UART0.

Agent

MCP → describe the chip rp2350 and run against examples/rp2350-zero/system.yaml. Do not claim USB or WS2812 success.