Renesas Unveil Ultra Low Power Microcontrollers With USB Connectivity

This new device group brings the ultra low power features of the Renesas 8-/16-bit RL78 MCU Series to the 32-bit RX product lineup, offering a greater range of device scalability and functionality. The new RX111 devices are designed to support a broad range of low-end 32-bit embedded applications including mobile healthcare, smart meters, sensors/detectors, and industrial and building automation.

Renesas’ True Low-Power capability offers designers the lowest possible power consumption across a vast range of temperatures and voltages, including all peripherals and Flash memory, while also providing maximum flexibility with multiple operational and sleep modes. This allows for the lowest possible power consumption for the user’s application environment.

“Performance and efficiency are key factors for embedded developers, and we have strengthened our partnership with industry-leading Renesas Electronics to continue supplying developers with the highest performing tools,” said Stefan Skarin, CEO IAR Systems. “As the only tools provider covering the entire range of Renesas’ 8-, 16- and 32-bit microcontroller families, IAR Systems is proud to announce full support for the RX111 devices in IAR Embedded Workbench. The high performance scores achieved on the CoreMark benchmarks confirms IAR Embedded Workbench and the RX100 series as a great choice for customers aiming to create true low-power, high-performance applications. To give developers an opportunity to try this powerful combination, we also provide a free 64KB-limited version of the tools.”

Key Features of the RX111 Group of MCUs:

1) Flexible power management
Renesas’ ultra low power technology delivers flexible power management and optimum power consumption for all use cases. The RX111 Group of MCUs offers three different run modes, three low power modes and a flexible clock system. For instance, the Low Power Fast Wake-up capability enables the MCUs to operate at 100 uA/MHz in Run Mode and 350 nA in Software Standby from which it can wake-up in only 4.8 us. It integrates a Zero Wait State Flash with Erase/Write as low as 1.8 V, 1 KB erase block size and background operation, and offers erase times as low as 10 ms per block.

2) High CPU processing performance
The new RX111 devices feature 32 MHz operating speeds and 1.56 Dhrystone MIPS/MHz throughput, with power consumption as low as 64 uA/DMIPS. The MCUs also achieve 3.08 CoreMark/MHz and 14.9 CoreMark/mA.

3) Multiple communications peripherals
The new devices support multiple communications peripherals, including USB 2.0 host/function and battery charging, OTG, I2C, and serial peripheral interface protocols. Analog functions include a 12-bit analog-to-digital converter with internal voltage reference, an 8-bit digital-to-analog converter and a temperature sensor.

4) Solution kit
Renesas provides a Renesas Starter Kit with sample drivers (mass storage class, communication class and HID class), applications of high-speed charging by USB, various middleware such as memory card, evaluation board with Renesas’ MCU and development environment required for MCU evaluation and first installation.

The RX111 Group of MCUs is software compatible with the RX600 and RX200 Series, providing greater flexibility and an easy migration path to higher performance MCUs. The RX111 MCUs are available in low pin counts ranging from 36 to 64 pins and 16 KB to 128 KB embedded flash memory with a roadmap to higher memory size. As part of the RX Family, the new MCUs also feature a compatible instruction set, hardware and software tools set, peripherals, and hardware safety features to comply with safety standards, including Cyclic Redundancy Checks, Clock Accuracy Circuit, independent watch dog timer, a motor control timer and I/O ports.

Renesas provides a comprehensive development ecosystem for the RX series, including a powerful Eclipse-based IDE, as well as compilers, debugger emulators, code generation and flash programmers.

The RX111 devices are supported by IAR Systems’ EWRX tool chain compiler and IDE. IAR Systems will provide the 64 KB free version of its EWRX tools to support all RX devices, including the new RX111 MCUs.

Availability

Samples of the RX111 devices are available from July 2013. Mass production is scheduled to begin in September 2013. (Availability is subject to change without notice.)