Renesas Electronics Company, a premier provider of superior semiconductor options, right now introduced the trade’s first general-purpose 32-bit RISC-V-based microcontrollers (MCUs) constructed with an internally developed CPU core. Whereas many MCU suppliers have just lately joined funding alliances to advance the event of RISC-V merchandise, Renesas has already designed and examined a brand new RISC-V core independently, which is now applied in a business product and out there globally.

The brand new, R9A02G021 group of MCUs offers embedded programs designers a transparent path to creating a variety of power-conscious, cost-sensitive purposes primarily based on the open-source instruction set structure (ISA).

Whereas most of right now’s RISC-V options goal particular purposes, the R9A02G021 group MCUs are designed to serve a number of finish markets, reminiscent of IoT sensors, client electronics, medical gadgets, small home equipment and industrial programs. Much like present general-purpose MCUs, designers can have entry to a full-scale improvement surroundings for the R9A02G021, supplied by Renesas and its in depth community of toolchain companions. It will enable them to considerably scale back prices, engineering sources and improvement time.

“From our RISC-V purpose-built ASSPs to this new general-purpose MCU, our purpose is to ship commercially viable merchandise that clients can take to mass manufacturing rapidly whereas demonstrating the advantages of the RISC-V structure,” mentioned Daryl Khoo, Vice President of Embedded Processing 1st Enterprise Division at Renesas. “As well as, clients usually face advanced design challenges and tradeoffs reminiscent of efficiency, energy consumption, reminiscence, or a selection of CPU structure. The brand new RISC-VMCU offers a further diploma of option to clients who wish to use merchandise with the open structure.”

As an early adopter of RISC-V, Renesas has a wealthy providing of RISC-V application-specific merchandise, together with its 32-bit voice-control and motor-control ASSP gadgets and RZ/5 64-bit basic goal microprocessors (MPUs), which had been constructed on CPU cores developed by Andes Expertise Corp. The R9A02G021 group represents the primary era of general-purpose MCUs primarily based on the internally developed RISC-V core by Renesas that may roll out over the subsequent a number of years.

“Till now, the MCU, a key potential marketplace for RISC-V has been missing robust business designs from main suppliers which make up round 85% of the MCU market,” mentioned Tom Hackenberg, Principal Analyst, Computing & Software program, Extra Moore Enterprise Line at Yole Group. “With Renesas introducing full business availability of a RISC-V multimarket MCU to its various MCU portfolio, in addition to much-needed assist from well-recognized trade commonplace instruments suppliers, the RISC-V market is poised to lastly begin accelerating progress. As different main distributors observe Renesas’ instance, RISC-V ought to strategy 10% of the general MCU market by the top of 2029 with important progress potential past.”

Balancing Efficiency and Energy

The R9A02G021 RISC-V group provides ample efficiency with clock speeds as much as 48MHz whereas consuming extraordinarily low energy on standby at 0.3µA. It offers 128KB of quick flash reminiscence, 16KB of SRAM reminiscence and 4KB of flash reminiscence for knowledge storage. Designed to face up to harsh situations, the MCUs can function reliably at ambient temperatures starting from -40 °C to 125 °C. The MCUs include commonplace serial communications interfaces, in addition to digital-to-analog converter (DAC) and analog-to-digital converter (ADC) capabilities to facilitate high-speed and safe connections with sensors, shows and different exterior modules. The extensive 1.6V to five.5V enter voltage vary allows low-voltage, low-current operation and permits noise immunity, making the R9A02G021 ultimate for battery-powered gadgets.

Key Options of the R9A02G021 MCU Group

• CPU: RISC-V core at 48MHz, 3.27 Coremark/MHz
• Reminiscence: 128KB code flash, 16KB SRAM (12KB and ECC SRAM 4KB) and 4KB knowledge flash
• Energy Consumption: 162µA/MHz (Lively energy), 0.3µA (SW Standby), 4µs (Standby wakeup)
• Serial communications interfaces: UART, SPI, I2C, SAU
• Analog peripherals: 12-bit ADC and 8-bit DAC
• Temperature vary: -40°C to 125°C (Ta)
• Working voltage vary: 1.6 to five.5V
• Packages: 16 WLCSP, 24/32/48 QFN package deal (QFP possibility)

The R9A02G021 RISC-V MCUs are absolutely supported by Renesas’ e² Studio Built-in Improvement Setting (IDE), provided to clients for gratis. The excellent toolchain features a code configurator, the LLVM compiler and a quick prototyping board (FPB). Full improvement environments are additionally out there from Renesas’ companions: IAR with its Embedded Workbench IDE and I-jet debug probe, and SEGGER with the Embedded Studio IDE, J-Hyperlink debug probes and Flasher manufacturing programmers. Supporting documentation contains the FPB person guide, a Getting Began information, schematics, Invoice of Supplies (BOM), and Gerber information.