Efficient power managment inside a handheld gaming console
Pip is a handheld computer that turns code into play. Built by Curious Chip around a Raspberry Pi compute module, it lets anyone from age eight upward write their own games and applications, beam them across wirelessly, and play them on a bright touchscreen with detachable controllers, sensors and a maker-friendly expansion header. It is, deliberately, a real computer, not a toy, placed into the hands of children.
That ambition set a high bar for the hardware underneath. A device aimed at young makers has to boot reliably every single time, tolerate handling that a toy would never survive, and coordinate a compute module, a display, radios, controllers and a battery as one coherent system. Curious Chip needed a control and power foundation they could trust to make all of that dependable.
We implemented a robust power-domain controller that governs how each part of the system is powered up, sequenced and shut down. Getting power sequencing right is what stands between a product that always wakes cleanly and one that occasionally hangs. We engineered it to stay predictable under real-world conditions, including the messy edge cases of a battery-powered device being switched on and off at will.
We also controller with a custom bootloader that allows the board controller to be maintained and updated safely over the product's life. It brings the system up in a known-good state every time and provides the hooks needed to recover and update the device in the field.
Together, the board controller, power domain and bootloader gave Pip a dependable core to build on: the unglamorous engineering that lets the playful part of the product shine, and that lets a pocket-sized computer hold up to everything a curious eight-year-old can throw at it.