Raspberry Pi CM4 quadruples PCIe slots thanks to this card

The introduction of the PCI Express slot on the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 has opened up a world of possibilities, but for some people it might not be enough. Waveshare has decided to do something about it by offering its PCIe-Packet-Switch-4P, brought to our attention by CNX-Software, which uses an ASMedia ASM1184e PCIe switch to connect four devices to the single lane PCIe Gen 2 interface. Compute Module 4.

Photo Credit: Waveshare Obviously, this won't get you to typical GPU speeds and may be further limited, as the Chinese language wiki accompanying the card states that the bandwidth is only 500Mb / s, which however could be a typing error.

The card measures only 82 × 39 mm and needs a 12V power supply, which can come through the PCIe bus or a DC jack . Otherwise, you can only use with 5V, but some precautions will have to be taken to ensure proper operation under these conditions. The documentation doesn't offer any hints about this, but we can see what looks like a “floppy drive” style power connector supporting 12V and 5V on the underside of the board.

if (jQuery ("# ​​crm_srl-th_hardware_d_mh2_1 ") .is (": visible ")) {console.log (" Edinet ADV adding zone: tag crm_srl-th_hardware_d_mh2_1 slot id: th_hardware_d_mh2 "); } Photo Credit: Waveshare The PCIe-Packet-Switch-4P is an add-in card that plugs into a carrier Compute Module 4 equipped with a single Mini PCIe slot. The card fits into the Mini PCIe slot and is held in place by brass standoffs. It is also compatible with other Mini PCIe products, such as Waveguide's CM4 carrier card, which adds HDMI, Ethernet, USB, GPIO, and three ribbon cable connectors.

The Waveshare PCIe-Packet-Switch-4P is currently on sale in China for around 20 euros, but is not currently available on Waveshare's UK store.