RX111 Microcontrollers Extend Battery Life, Provide Robust Development Ecosystem for Building Automation, Healthcare and Other IoT Applications

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — (BUSINESS WIRE) — September 29, 2014 — Renesas Electronics Corporation (TSE:6723), a premier provider of advanced semiconductor solutions, is reducing design complexities for developers of building automation, portable healthcare, smart grid, wearables, and other emerging applications for the Internet of Things (IoT) with an expansion of its innovative RX100 Series of microcontrollers (MCUs). Changing user preferences are driving new design needs, and the new RX111 MCUs bring increased memory capacity options to meet the demands of these growing markets.

“Embedded systems design is changing. Emerging applications demand more functionality and software design is playing a more important role. New MCU solutions must balance this complexity with demands for longer battery life in devices ranging from entry level to the high end,” said Ritesh Tyagi, vice president of marketing, Renesas Electronics America. “With larger memory capacity and our innovative True Low Power™ technology, the RX111 group of MCUs brings the required high-performance and ultra-low power capabilities at attractive price points, opening new opportunities to develop the next generation of applications for the Internet of Things.”

For instance, measurement and detection devices for building automation systems are evolving with more complex control functions. Healthcare devices are adding RF connectivity and battery-charging functionality to the USB interface. Industrial sensors are adding support for functional safety to ensure safe operation even when a failure occurs, and are bringing multiple communication functions to interface within the IoT.

As the industry’s first entry-level 32-bit MCU to offer True Low Power™, USB 2.0 connectivity, digital signal processing (DSP) capability, and multiple on-chip safety features, the RX111 group provides strong support for a variety of systems, particularly for the healthcare and building automation segments. With increased memory capacity, ranging from 256KB to 512KB of Flash Memory and up to 64KB of on-chip RAM, the new RX111 devices extend the high performance and ultra-low power that the RX100 Series of MCUs is known to deliver.

Extending Battery Life

Renesas True Low Power™ technology delivers flexible power management and optimum power consumption for all use cases. The expanded RX111 group maintains the same low-power features of the existing RX111 devices, with three different run modes, three low-power modes, and a flexible clock system. For instance, the Low Power Fast Wakeup capability enables the new MCUs to operate at 100µA/MHz in Run Mode and 430nA in software standby from which it can wake up in only 4.8µs. It integrates a Zero Wait State Flash with Erase/Write as low as 1.8V, 1KB erase block size and background operation (BGO), and offers erase times as low as 10ms per block.

These features combine to extend the operating duration of battery-powered products such as portable devices or healthcare devices, making it possible to build “low-power, fast-wakeup” products. An ultra-fast wakeup time helps to minimize the amount of time spent in an “awake” mode, for example processing an ADC signal, and thereby maximize the amount of time the MCU can spend in “sleep” mode.

About the RX100 Series

Based on the Renesas RX CPU core, the RX100 Series of MCUs delivers high performance, ultra-low power, connectivity and DSP functionality in a general-purpose MCU. All RX100 devices feature 32MHz operating speeds and 1.56 Dhrystone MIPS (DMIPS)/MHz throughput, with power consumption as low as 64 µA/DMIPS.

The RX111 devices support multiple communications peripherals, including USB 2.0 host with battery charging, device and OTG, and the I2C, and SPI (serial peripheral interface) protocols. Analog functions include a 12-bit ADC (analog-to-digital converter) with internal voltage reference, an 8-bit DAC (digital-to-analog converter) and a temperature sensor.

Other significant features include a motor control timer (MTU2) and hardware safety features to comply with safety standards, including Cyclic Redundancy Checks (CRCs), Clock Accuracy Circuit (CAC) and independent watch dog timer.

The RX100 Series of MCUs is software compatible with the RX600 and RX200 Series, providing greater flexibility and an easy migration path to higher performance MCUs.

Robust Development Ecosystem

For a quick development start, the RX111 MCUs are supported by a robust development tool environment from both Renesas and third-party tool vendors that make up the RX ecosystem.

Renesas provides a comprehensive development ecosystem for the RX Family, including e2studio, a powerful Eclipse-based IDE, as well as compilers, debuggers, code generation tools, and flash programmers. In addition, the RX111 devices are supported by the IAR Embedded Workbench for Renesas RX compiler and integrated development environment (IDE). RTOS and middleware is available from leading third-party companies such as Micrium, Segger, CMX, Express Logic, RoweBots, and FreeRTOS.

Extensive software examples and drivers are provided by Renesas, including the Firmware Integration Technology (hereinafter "FIT") Drivers. FIT is a completely new concept that emphasizes the simplification of embedding peripheral function module drivers and improves the portability between RX MCUs. Software examples and FIT drivers can be downloaded from the Renesas website.