RL78 MCU

Take the best elements from both the R8C & 78K (78K0, 78K0R) families & what is the result? …a single family of extremely low power, high performance, versatile microcontrollers (MCU) to address the growing demands of the 8/16 bit applications market space.
The new RL78 MCU family from Renesas makes use of the low-power/high-performance aspects of the 78K0 core & combines this with powerful peripheral functions from the R8C & 78K families.

Achieving industry-leading levels in low power consumption of only 70µA/MHz operating current & 0.7µA standby current with real-time clock (RTC) & low-voltage detection (LVD) functions active, the family's power efficient design makes them ideal for battery-operated designs.

In addition to impressive consumption figures, the RL78 MCUs also support a new low-power mode known as "Snooze mode". In this state A/D conversion & serial communication are still supported while the CPU is in standby mode, offering the potential to extend battery life further still.

Capable of delivering 41 DMIPS when operating at 32 MHz (1.6x higher than that of previous Renesas products at 32MHz operation), the new process technology has enabled higher integration of on-chip features such as 32 MHz on-chip oscillator with a targeted +/- 1% accuracy, data flash with background operation & 1.6 to 5.5 Volt operation.

The RL78 family also features standard built-in safety functions to conform with the European White Goods safety standard (IEC 60730) such as flash memory CRC calculator, RAM parity error detection, clock fail & frequency detection circuit, A/D test function & illegal memory access detection.

The family will be made up from both application specific & general purpose (G-series) MCUs with initial products offering 2KB to 512KB of program space, with packaging options ranging from 20 to 128-pins.
As you would expect both hardware & software development tools are available to support the RL78 family. The E1 on-chip debugger emulator provides a wide range of support at low cost, while IECUBE in-circuit Emulator provides more comprehensive analysis features.

Samples of the new RL78 MCUs are due to be available this quarter, with mass production scheduled to begin in July 2011.

M32C/87

The Renesas M32C/87 is the latest member to join the versatile M16C platform. Aimed at closing the gap between the 16 & 32-bit microcontroller markets this device features a comprehensive peripheral set & a large, highly reliable Flash memory offering to try & meet the demands of this application space.

Available with embedded Flash memory densities of 384KB to 1MB (the largest available in the M16C Platform range) & 24KB to 48KB of RAM, the M32C/87 combines these factors with its high performance CPU core to produce a multitalented device.

The M32C/80 CPU CISC (Complex Instruction Set Computer) core can run at either 32MHz at 5V or 24MHz at 3V & as a member of the M16C platform, it supports pin & code compatibility throughout the families - a real selling point if you are looking to upgrade an existing design that utilises a less powerful/reduced function set M16C platform family member currently. Inside the M32C/80 core all of the M16C 16-bit instructions have been maintained, but are added to by a set of complimentary 32-bit instructions. Using 16-bit register pairs along a hardware barrel shifter, 32-bit registers have been implemented, resulting in the number of cycles per instruction being reduced down to an average of two from three - providing RISC like performance whilist maintain excellent code density.

The M32C/87 also feature DSP functionality, provided by a two cycle multiply accumulation instruction to allow functions such as software modem, speech compression & telecommunication software stacks to be handled by the device.

Onboard the MCU are a number of communications options including 0, 1 or 2 CAN channels (CAN 2.0B compliant) & up to 6 UART channels supporting I2C, IEBus & IrDA. Peripherals include: 2x4KB VEEPROM (Virtual EEPROM), 4 DMA channels, 11 channel 16-bit timer, three-phase motor control unit, input capture/output compare unit, PLL, Main, Sub, & on-chip oscillator, 26 channel 10-bit A/D & 8-bit 2 channel D/A.

For evaluation/development purposes the M32C/87 is supported by its own dedicated RSK (Renesas Starter Kit). The kit is supplied with Renesas's Embedded Workbench HEW4.0, C-Compiler, E8a on-chip debugger, CPU board with M32C/87 MCU, a LCD for user/diagnostic interaction & sample code.

The board family offering, powerful performance, & versatility of the M32C/87 combined with quiet EMI/EMS characteristics & a highly reliable design we have come to expect from the Renesas M16C platform, makes this micro an ideal choice for automotive, communication, industrial & office automation applications.

For more information please visit Renesas.