Renesas Electronics has introduced a new RA MCU product family in ultra-small packages to achieve ultra-low power consumption and innovative peripheral features

     Renesas Electronics Group, a global supplier of semiconductor solutions, has announced the launch of the RA2E2, a new product family for its 32-bit RA microcontroller (MCU) product family. This series of products are based on Arm Cortex-M23 kernel, with low-power features and peripherals suitable for IoT terminal applications. The Package includes ultra-small 16-pin WLCSP (Wafer Level Chip Scale Package, 1.87mm x 1.84mm). Wafer-level chip package) to build a unique performance portfolio. The new 48MHz RA2E2 product group shortens the product design cycle and can be easily upgraded to other RA products.

     The RA2E2 MCU is designed to meet the needs of iot terminal applications such as wearable devices, medical devices, home appliances and industrial automation, providing lower operating power than other similar products in the industry. In the working mode, the energy consumption is only 81uA/MHz, the standby current of the software is only 200nA, and it can be woken up quickly. The new product supports an extremely wide Ta temperature range of -40 to 125°C, which is suitable for harsh iot operating environments. The RA2E2 MCU supports the I3C bus interface and integrates cost-saving peripheral features, including an on-chip oscillator with +/-1% accuracy, power-on reset, low voltage detector, EEPROM, and temperature sensor.

     The Renesas RA family of products now has more than 160 models, operating frequencies from 48MHz to 200MHz. The RA MCU offers ultra-low power consumption, a wide range of communication connectivity options, and excellent security features including Arm TrustZone® technology. Renesas Flexible Configuration Package (FSP) supports all RA products. FSP features efficient drivers and middleware to simplify the implementation of communication and security functions. The FSP GUI simplifies and speeds up the development process. FSP can flexibly reuse existing code resources, and easily achieve compatibility and extension with other RA products. Developers using FSP have access to tools through the rich Arm ecosystem, as well as support from Renesas's extensive partner network, to speed products to market.

     "We are seeing increasing demand for 32-bit MCUS in fewpin iot end applications," said Roger Wendelken, senior vice president of Renesas Electronics' iot and Infrastructure business. The RA2E2 product group can meet this market demand with its features and performance. "The Renesas RA family of products now offers solutions with packages ranging from 16 to 176 pins and performance ranging from 48 to 200MHz, all with FSP support, making it easy and fast to transfer design IP between products." 

     The RA2E2 MCU product group includes nine different products, packaged from 16 to 24 pins, configured with 16 to 64KB flash memory and 8KB SRAM; In addition, it also contains 2KB data flash memory, which is a function that other products with few pins do not have. This product group is also one of the few MCUs of the same kind that provide I3C bus interface, and can realize 4.6 Mbps high-speed communication - by contrast, the competitive product rate is only 1 Mbps. The RA2E2 product group also has advanced security functions, including built-in encryption accelerator (AES256/128), true random number generator (TRNG) and storage protection unit.

     Renesas seamlessly integrates the RA2E2 MCU with analog and power devices to create a "winning product portfolio" that accelerates the design process and reduces customer risk across a wide range of applications. Among them, the "successful product portfolio" using RA2E2 MCU includes DDR5 gaming DIMM solutions, etc. Renesas now has more than 250 "successful product portfolios" for a variety of applications and end products.