Shubham Sawarkar
Renesas, a Japanese electronics company, has launched a family of microcontrollers designed for space-constrained, energy-sensitive IoT endpoint, wearable, medical, industrial automation, and other consumer and home appliance applications.
The RA2E2 series is built on an Arm Cortex-M23 processor and belongs to the company’s 32bit RA family. They combine low power consumption with peripherals aimed at IoT endpoint applications, as well as space-saving packaging alternatives, such as a 16-pin WLCSP (wafer-level chip scale package) measuring 1.87 by 1.84mm.
The 48MHz group allows for quick design cycles and simple upgrades from other RA family devices.
Wearables, medical equipment, appliances, and industrial automation can all benefit from the devices’ capabilities. They require 81A/MHz in active mode and 200nA in software standby mode with rapid wakeup. For tough IoT operating situations, the temperature range is -40 to +125 C.
The group includes an I3C bus interface and peripheral functionalities such as an on-chip oscillator with 1% precision, power-on reset and low voltage detector, EEPROM, and a temperature sensor.
The RA family contains around 160 parts ranging in frequency from 48 to 200MHz. Arm TrustZonetechnology is one of the security choices.
All devices are supported by the Renesas FSP flexible software package, which comprises efficient drivers and middleware to simplify communication and security implementation. The FSP’s graphical user interface simplifies and accelerates the development process. It permits the usage of legacy code in a flexible manner, as well as compatibility and scalability with other RA family devices. Designers that use FSP have access to the Arm ecosystem, which includes technologies to help reduce time-to-market, as well as Renesas’ partner network.
“We see increasing demand for 32bit MCUs in low-pin-count IoT endpoint applications, and the RA2E2 group addresses that market need with the right features and performance,” said Roger Wendelken, senior vice president at Renesas. “Our RA family now offers solutions from 16 to 176 pins and from 48 to 200MHz performance, all supported by our FSP that enables easy and fast transition of design IP between different devices.”
The RA2E2 family includes nine devices with 16-pin to 24-pin packaging, 16 to 64kbytes of flash memory, and 8kbytes of SRAM. The devices also incorporate a 2kbyte data flash memory, which other low-pin-count devices do not have.
They are also believed to be the only MCUs in their class with an I3C bus interface, allowing for 4.6Mbit/s communications while consuming less power. A cryptography accelerator (AES256/128), a genuinely random number generator, and memory protection units are among the security features. Packages ranging from 16-WLCSP to 20- and 24-pin QFN are available.
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