Renesas Electronics Embeds the Largest Flash and SRAM Together to Date in a 32-Bit General-Purpose Microcontroller to Enable the Internet of Things

The RX64M MCUs Combine Superior Connectivity and High Performance with 4 MB of Flash Memory and 512 KB of SRAM for Industrial Equipment and Other IoT Applications.

Renesas Electronics Corporation (TSE: 6723), a premier provider of advanced semiconductor solutions, unveiled the RX64M Group of microcontrollers (MCUs), its first product in the flagship RX Family of 32-bit MCUs to be fabricated in a 40 nm process. Based on the new RXv2 CPU core, which was announced in November 2013, the new MCU Group consists of 112 products running up to 120 megahertz (MHz) with zero wait state from the high-speed embedded flash memory and feature both the high-speed real-time performance as well as large memory capacities required by industrial applications and network equipment. The new MCUs offer system designers a path to quickly and efficiently develop high-performance, low-power industrial equipment that supports a wide range of communication functions.

Key Features of the RX64M Group of MCUs:

(1) The adoption of a leading-edge 40 nm process provides not only increased on-chip memory capacities, but also lower power consumption and higher CPU performance.

The RX64M Group of MCUs are fabricated in a leading-edge 40 nm process. Not only do these MCU embed up to 4 MB of the industry’s fastest flash memory (120 MHz operation with no wait states) and up to 512 KB of SRAM, but at the same time they also reduce operating power consumption by 40 percent compared to the earlier Renesas RX MCUs. Furthermore, by adopting the new-architecture RXv2 core, these devices will achieve CPU performance of a total of 504 CoreMark, which is 1.6 times that of the previous generation devices and defines a new threshold for embedded MCU systems overall. Thus the RX64M devices improve both real-time performance and low-power performance, and can contribute to cost reductions by reducing the need for external memory.

(2) Extensive set of peripheral functions for industrial applications

In addition to a full complement of communications functions, the RX64M Group of MCUs adds new PWM timer functions. Furthermore, the devices are highly backward compatible, as they feature the functions included in the existing Renesas RX600 Series of MCUs. By including motor control timer functions and an IEEE 1588-compliant Ethernet function, which is required by industrial applications, the new MCUs can improve inter-system synchronization performance and provide flexible support for all types of motor control. In addition to the vast amount of general-purpose serial interfaces, these devices support high-speed communications functions such as two Ethernet MAC and two USB interfaces, supporting the device, host as well as OTG functions, an SD host interface, and a QSPI (quad serial peripheral interface). Furthermore, they include an encoding function to increase reliability and robustness of those communications functions.

(3) Powerful tools to support hardware and software development

For a quick development start, the RX64M MCUs will be supported by a robust development tool environment from both Renesas and third-party tool vendors that make up the RX ecosystem, such as Micrium, Express Logic, CMX, SEGGER, and freeRTOS. Both the Eclipse-based e² studio Integrated Development Environment (IDE) from Renesas as well as the Embedded Workbench for RX (EWRX) IDE from IAR Systems will provide complete build and debug support for the RX64M. In addition to the Renesas Starter Kit for RX64M, which comes with a Renesas E1 On-Chip debugger (JTAG based), Renesas provides the RX Driver Package, which is a collection of driver software for the various on-chip peripherals. Renesas will also provide an interactive, GUI-based code generation tool that is integrated into the e² studio IDE and allows the user to automatically generate initialization and driver code for the peripherals on the MCU. These software tools, which Renesas will start introducing sequentially from March 2014 will contribute significantly to reducing the number of development steps and costs required for hardware and software development on the RX64M.

Renesas intends to continue development of high-functionality and high-performance MCUs for the industrial equipment and network equipment markets, which are expected to grow rapidly along with the progress in the IoT field.