The hugely popular micro-sized bare-bones development kit Raspberry Pi is about to receive official customization treatment in an exclusive agreement struck between Raspberry Pi Trading Ltd., the commercial subsidiary of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, and Element14, subsidiary of Premier Farnell plc.

In London today the two companies announced that the deal will give Element14 exclusive power to provide “design and manufacturing services to OEM customers to create bespoke designs based upon the Raspberry Pi technology platform.”

Details on the customization process are available on Element14’s Raspberry Pi Customization Service page.

“We are delighted to announce the appointment of element14 as our strategic partner for the design and manufacture of customer Raspberry Pi-derived hardware,” said Eben Upton, CEO of Raspberry Pi Trading.

Element14’s agreement also suggests that the company will be prepared to provide support for substantial up-front commitments for bulk orders of NRE (non-recurring engineering) designs and volume orders. Quantities are expected to start between 3,000 and 5,000 depending on the customization requirements.

Raspberry Pi has seen a broad appeal across multiple sectors including education, hardware hackers, Internet of Things (IoT) prototype developers, among others. While the system itself is intimately modifiable with a multitude of I/O ports and a built-in Linux OS, additional customization will open up whole new avenues for prototyping.

Earlier in 2015, LinuxGizmoz.com showed that the Raspberry Pi enjoys massive adoption and popularity amid Linux hackers and hardware developers. In the 2015 Hacker SBC (Single Board Computer) Survey, the Raspberry Pi 2 Model B came out on top (with the Raspberry Pi Model B+ in third place).

Element14 offering a full design service consultancy in-house

“With access to over 200 engineers through Embest and AVID Technologies, element14 offers in-house design services and manufacturing of advanced electronic assemblies for every phase of the design process,” writes Element14 when touting its service.

Common Raspberry Pi modifications available for mass production. Image courtesy of Element14

Embest Technology Co., Ltd. and AVID Technologies, Inc. are both leading engineering and design companies with broad reach into Internet-connected consumer devices as well as those for industrial applications. (AVID even lists “explosion proof” as a certification, if you happen to need that in a product.) By combining resources from these partners, Element14 is putting the strength of knowledgeable consultants at the disposal of customers.

According to Element14 common customizations include: reconfiguration of the board layout, incorporating additional functionality onto the circuit board (additional I/O, integrated power management, wireless, etc.), additional/modified memory (e.g. onboard flash, eMMC) and changing connections and headers.

Mass production a boon to small-time hardware developers

In the world of small, consumer-level Internet devices, the ability to rapidly prototype can mean shaving months off research time. Single Board Computer such as the Raspberry Pi make this extremely easy by putting everything in one place along with a programmable interface. As a result, these kits are extremely popular for hardware developers and tinkerers.

However, the Raspberry Pi is also a little bit unwieldly when it comes to production at scale. Developers may have to deal with unnecessary components, extra bulk, adding their own modules and other engineering issues.

By providing on-board customization, Element14 will allow more hardware developers to use the Raspberry Pi as their final product core “brain” for consumer release.

For example, the NetNinja, a home VPN networking box invented and developed by Tony Gaitatzis, uses a Raspberry Pi B+ board.

By taking advantage of Element14’s deal with Raspberry Pi Trading, the NetNinja’s core board could be customized with extra I/O ports, chipsets for VPN encryption or any other number of additional elements on-board. Add on Element14’s intention to mass production it will allow for bulk orders to align with other parts of the supply-chain, potentially leading to cheaper, better-integrated end products.

Featured image credit: courtesy of Element14