Raspberry Pi Pico W provides a minimal yet flexible external circuitry to support the RP2040 chip: flash memory (Winbond W25Q16JV), a crystal, power supplies and decoupling, and USB connector. The majority of the RP2040 microcontroller pins are brought to the user I/O pins on the left and right edge of the board. Four RP2040 I/O are used for internal functions: driving an LED, on-board switch mode power supply (SMPS) power control, and sensing the system voltages.
Pico W has an on-board 2.4GHz wireless interface using an Infineon CYW43439. The antenna is an onboard antenna licensed from ABRACON (formerly ProAnt). The wireless interface is connected via SPI to the RP2040.
Pico W has been designed to use either soldered 0.1-inch pin-headers (it is one 0.1-inch pitch wider than a standard 40-pin DIP package), or to be positioned as a surface-mountable 'module', as the user I/O pins are also castellated. There are SMT pads underneath the USB connector and BOOTSEL button, which allow these signals to be accessed if used as a reflow-soldered SMT module.