ARM Cortex Cores in This Project

The Khadas VIM3, Raspberry Pi 5, and Raspberry Pi Pico boards all sit in the same broad computing family, but their Cortex cores are designed for very different jobs. Understanding that distinction makes it easier to choose the right board instead of judging everything by core count or clock speed.

Application Cores and Microcontroller Cores

Family	Example here	Designed for
Cortex-A	VIM3 A73/A53, Pi 5 A76	Running Linux, applications, filesystems, networks, databases, and many processes at once
Cortex-M	RP2040 M0+, RP2350 M33 option	Low-power control, GPIO, timers, sensors, and predictable embedded work

A Cortex-A board normally has an MMU and runs a full operating system. A Cortex-M microcontroller usually runs one firmware image directly and has much less memory, but it starts quickly, uses little power, and can keep doing one small job for a long time.

The Boards Side by Side

Board	Core / processor	What it means in practice
Khadas VIM3	4× Cortex-A73 + 2× Cortex-A53	big.LITTLE Linux computer with eMMC and an NPU; good for local processing and services
Raspberry Pi 5	4× 64-bit Cortex-A76	Fast, general-purpose Linux computer with a large software and hardware ecosystem
Raspberry Pi Pico	2× Cortex-M0+ in RP2040	Small controller for radio, sensors, timing, and battery-powered field work
Raspberry Pi Pico 2	RP2350 with Cortex-M33 or Hazard3 RISC-V options	Newer microcontroller platform; firmware must select and support the intended architecture

Why More Cores Is Not the Whole Story

A Pico can respond to a GPIO or radio event without waiting for a general-purpose operating system.
A Pi 5 can run a database, compiler, VPN, dashboard, and gateway process at the same time.
The VIM3's NPU is a separate accelerator; it is not another Cortex CPU core.
Clock speed comparisons are meaningful only when the workload, memory, storage, and software are also comparable.
A Linux board can be more powerful and still be the wrong choice for a node that must sleep for months.

From Cortex to LoRa

Pico / Pico 2:
  read sensor → make a small message → transmit → sleep

Pi 5:
  receive mesh packets → validate → store → display → forward

Khadas VIM3:
  receive packets → combine with local data → process at the edge
  → run an NPU workload or local service → forward a summary

The radio does not care which Cortex family produced the packet. What changes is how much work each board can do before and after the packet is sent.

A Note About Pico 2

RP2350 is especially interesting because it can support Arm Cortex-M33 or the Hazard3 RISC-V architecture. The Pico 2 board is therefore not simply a faster RP2040 with a new name. Check the firmware and SDK target when moving code between Pico generations, especially when a library depends on architecture-specific features.

For a practical RP2040-specific view of the Pico/Pico W Cortex-M0+ Thumb subset, ABI, startup, and safe GPIO assembly, read Raspberry Pi Pico W Assembly: RP2040, Cortex-M0+, and Thumb.