Renesas Electronics introduces the RA4M3 MCU product family for industrial and iot applications

     Renesas Electronics, a global semiconductor solutions provider, announced the launch of a new 32-bit RA4M3 microcontroller (MCU) product group, expanding its RA4 MCU product family. The RA4M3 MCU uses the Arm® Cortex®-M33 core based on the Armv8-M architecture to increase operating speeds up to 100MHz. The RA4M3 portfolio features high performance, Arm TrustZone technology, Renesas secure encryption engine, and scalable storage to facilitate the development of secure and reliable Internet of Things (IoT) edge devices for low-power applications such as security, metering, industrial, and HVAC.

     Roger Wendelken, Senior Vice President, Internet of Things and Infrastructure Business Group, Renesas Electronics, said: "I am very pleased with the rapid expansion of the Renesas RA product family since we launched the RA6M4 MCU product group in October. While the RA6M4 target applications demand high performance and high security, the RA4M3 product family balances performance and power consumption with the same level of safety features. In addition, customers have the flexibility to expand their storage space in line with the continuous innovation of industrial and iot applications."

     The RA4M3 product family is designed for low-power IoT applications that combine high performance, robust security, and more storage space. The new MCUS combine TrustZone technology with Renesas's enhanced Secure encryption engine, enabling customers to implement the functionality of secure chips in a variety of IoT designs. The Secure encryption engine includes multiple symmetric and asymmetric encryption accelerators, advanced key management, secure product lifecycle management, resistance to power analysis attacks, and tamper detection.

     When running the CoreMark algorithm in flash memory, the RA4M3 MCU has power consumption as low as 119μA/MHz, power consumption as low as 1.6mA in standby mode, and standby wake time of 30µs, which is critical for IoT applications that run outdoors for long periods of time. For memory-intensive applications, designers can combine Quad-SPI and SD card interfaces with the MCU's on-chip memory to increase storage capacity. Background running and Flash Bank SWAP are ideal for running memory-optimized firmware updates in the background. The large capacity on-chip RAM with parity /ECC capability also makes the RA4M3 MCU ideal for safety-conscious applications. The RA4M3 MCU also has several integrated features to reduce BOM costs, including capacitive touch sensing, up to 1MB of on-chip flash memory, and peripherals for analog, communication, and connected memory.