Renesas Electronics introduces the RA MCU product family based on the 32-bit Arm Cortex-M kernel

     Renesas Electronics Corporation announced the introduction of the Renesas Advanced (RA)MCU product family based on the 32-bit Arm® Cortex-M kernel. RA MCUS offer the ultimate combination of optimized performance, security, connectivity, peripheral IP, and an easy-to-use Flexible Software Package (FSP) to meet the needs of the next generation of embedded solutions. To support this new family of products, Renesas has built a comprehensive partner ecosystem that provides RA MCUS with a range of software and hardware components that work right out of the box.

     The RA product family ecosystem, with core technologies such as security, reliability, connectivity and HMI, will help customers accelerate the development of iot applications. With Renesas RA MCUS for product design, engineers can easily develop Internet of Things (IoT) endpoints and edge devices for applications such as industrial automation, building automation, metering, healthcare and appliances. The RA family of products is Arm Platform Security Architecture (PSA) Level 1 certified and includes the RA2 series (up to 60 MHz), RA4 Series (up to 100 MHz), RA6 Series (up to 200 MHz), and the dual-core RA8 series to be released shortly.

     "RA MCU combines our Secure Encryption Engine (SEC) IP with NIST CAVP certification, based on Arm®v8-M TrustZone® technology," said Roger Wendelken, senior vice president of Renesas Electronics' iot and Infrastructure Business group. Delivers unmatched iot security to customers, while also providing tamper detection and increased resistance to side-channel attacks. The scalability and compatibility across RA's product family enables customers to build a range of products and develop quickly with our Flexible Configuration Package (FSP) using Amazon FreeRTOS, ThreadX, or other RTOS and middleware solutions."

     Dipti Vachani, senior vice president and general manager of Arm's Automotive and iot business, said: "In today's era of rapid innovation, developers need to accelerate time to market without compromising critical features such as security and connectivity. The new RA MCU product family has been PSA certified, proving that these products are built on sound security principles that enable developers to improve the confidentiality and security of high-performance endpoint devices."

     The first five RA MCU product groups are comprised of 32 scalable MCUS based on the Arm Cortex-M4 and Cortex-M23 cores. These MCUS feature 32-176 pins, 256 KB to 2 MB code flash, 32 KB to 640 KB SRAM, and provide connectivity such as USB, CAN, and Ethernet. Design transfer within the RA family is easy thanks to functional and pin compatibility. Each RA MCU product group offers excellent operating and standby power consumption and various enhancements such as Renesas' popular HMI capacitive touch key technology.

     The Flexible Configuration Package (FSP) of the RA family of products provides an open architecture that allows customers to reuse legacy code and combine it with software samples from Renesas Electronics and partners to accelerate the deployment of complex functions such as connectivity and security. Using Amazon FreeRTOS, FSP will also add out-of-the-box support for ThreadX RTOS and middleware on Cortex-M23 and Cortex-M33 MCUS in early 2020, giving developers a high-end "device to the cloud" option. Out-of-the-box functionality can also be easily replaced or extended with any other RTOS or middleware.

     The roadmap for RA's product family will see more MCU products introduced in 2020, with more advanced technology, more unique features, and a growing partner ecosystem. Psa-certified and compliant Trusted Firmware-M (TF-M) API products are available in the roadmap, including Cortex-M33 MCUS, low-power Cortex-M23 MCUS, and BLE/IEEE 802.15.4 wireless iot products. TF-M/PSA certified MCUS will give customers the confidence and assurance to quickly deploy secure iot endpoints and edge devices, as well as smart factory devices for Industry 4.0.

     The RA family of products further enhances Renesas' mature and successful 32-bit MCU product line, including the RX family of products and the Renesas Synergy™ Platform - dedicated to providing unique and differentiated capabilities that deliver value to customers. Renesas Synergy uses the Arm Cortex-M core and features an MCU that combines commercially rated, guaranteed software and development tools. The Renesas eXtreme (RX) family of products features a proprietary RX core that delivers industry-leading 32-bit CoreMark®/ MHz performance and the largest code flash and SRAM capacity.

     The first wave of RA products incorporated hardware-based security features, from simple AES acceleration to fully integrated encryption subsystems isolated within the MCU. Secure Crypto Engine provides symmetric and asymmetric encryption/decryption, hash functions, true random number generators (TRNG), and advanced key processing, including key generation and McU-related unique key encapsulation. If the user does not follow the correct access protocol, the access management circuit will turn off the dedicated RAM built into the encryption engine, ensuring that the plaintext key is never exposed on any CPU or peripheral bus. The RA product family's development environment provides on-chip debugging, ides, compilers, support tools, evaluation kits, and development boards, as well as design files, schematics, PCB routing files, and Boms.