TECH

Raspberry Pi 4 8GB is missing? A youtuber built it himself

The youtuber MadEDoctor has adopted a "homemade" solution to make up for the limited availability of the 8GB Raspberry Pi 4: he built it himself. In essence, it replaced the 1 GB memory chip of the homonymous version, much easier to find, with an 8 GB module purchased separately.

But why bother so much? As we reported towards the end of 2022, the Raspberry Pi Foundation stressed that 2023 would be invested in recovering the rather critical situation left by the Coronavirus pandemic. Recent years have been characterized by the so-called "semiconductor crisis", marked by demand exceeding production capacity.

The consequences have also spilled over to the production of Raspberry, which has had to face major difficulties in the supply chain not only of the chips, but also in other sectors, such as the supply of PCBs. Not surprisingly, the company has already anticipated that a Raspberry Pi 5 will not arrive in 2023 as supply uncertainty risks negatively affecting the entire supply chain.

So how do you get an 8GB Raspberry Pi 4 in such tough times? MadEDoctor has decided to buy a RAM memory chip compatible with the platform, more precisely the D9ZCL 8 GB produced by Micron which costs about 20 dollars.

It must be said that this is by no means a simple operation, but the right skills and above all the correct instrumentation are required. A hot air station was used for soldering and desoldering the chips. This is because the module is housed via a BGA (Ball Grid Array), which is why all solder balls will need to be heated for removal.

Kapton tape has been used to preserve the integrity of the PCB, surrounding chips and plastic components. Once the card was prepared, a fine job was carried out with which the youtuber first heated the card to 250 °C and then concentrated the air flow on the 1 GB chip, bringing the temperature to 400 °C.

Welding takes place in a mirror image. After cleaning the board, the youtuber armed himself with flux and then positioned the chip on the joints (the solder balls are already present on the module) and with a careful heating job he soldered the new chip to the Raspberry Pi 4.

After the operation, he ran some tests with memtester to verify that the new memory worked according to the specifications, verifying that everything was perfectly successful. An undoubtedly invasive operation and which, of course, voids the warranty. In any case, it could prove to be a viable alternative should the search for an 8GB Raspberry Pi 4 prove to be too complex.

by: Vittorio Rienzo