General-Purpose Microcontrollers Equipped in 24-Pin Compact Package Support Up to 13 Sensors

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — (BUSINESS WIRE) — September 29, 2016 — Renesas Electronics America Inc., a premier supplier of advanced semiconductor solutions, today announced the RL78/G11 Group of microcontrollers (MCUs), a group of small-package, low-power MCUs that will enable users to easily and more quickly prototype and develop systems that support low-power sensor hubs and sensor application systems. Designed to connect to multiple sensors and convert the sensor output signals to digital data, these compact sensor hubs are used in a wide range of applications, such as computer operating environment monitoring for data center thermocouples in the industrial area, wearable health management devices in the healthcare field, and environmental sensing in greenhouses and factory farms in the agricultural industry.

The influx of information generated by big data combined with improvements in automation and sensor functions are opening new opportunities to improve business operations and ultimately contribute to improved quality of life. This has been true in many areas, notably in the industrial, healthcare, and agricultural areas.

In the industrial area, there are hopes for improving the efficiency of cooling and air conditioning by monitoring operation environments of computers and key communication equipment in data centers, and predicting failures by collecting and analyzing operating data. In the healthcare area, the data recording and analysis of blood pressure, pulse rate, and other data by wearable equipment could support day-to-day health maintenance and lead to the early discovery of diseases. In the agricultural area, monitoring the growth environment and conditions for crops with environmental sensors could lead to both cost savings, i.e., in fertilizers and heating and lighting costs, and improved crop quality overall. Increasingly higher-level sensing and even more sensors are required for these sorts of technology deployments, and the associated increased power consumption has become an issue, especially in battery-operated equipment.

There is also a trend toward rapid prototyping and shortening development time by using for example 3D printing and other technologies, and efforts are also needed in MCU development environments to easily support rapid prototyping and development.

The RL78/G11 MCUs were developed with these needs in mind, addressing not only miniaturization, lower power, and extended battery life in sensor hub and sensor application systems, but also the need for reduced user prototyping and development periods. Renesas will also provide a comprehensive development environment that includes evaluation boards, development tools, and software, to contribute both to power-saving electronic devices and to achieving an ecologically friendly society.

Key features of the RL78/G11:

(1) Support for up to 13 sensors in a 24-pin package

The RL78/G11 Group of MCUs supports the industry's largest number of sensors¹ in an MCU with 24 pins. The 24- and 25-pin versions of these new MCUs support 11 analog input channels and six serial communications channels. Even with the 24-pin compact package, the RL78/G11 MCUs can support signal inputs from a maximum of 13 sensors. Processing of the signal inputs from the sensors by the built-in analog functions and serial communications (reception) functions that operate even in standby mode allows low-power control, even in systems with multiple sensors.

The RL78/G11 Group provides extended features, such as high-speed wakeup, which transitions the CPU transitions from standby mode to CPU operation in 4 μsec (four-millionths of a second) and flash operating mode transitions that optimize the CPU operating performance and that contribute to energy savings. These MCUs also support battery voltage measurement and sensing referenced to an internal fixed voltage that operates from a 1.8 V power supply. Taking advantage of these functions reduces intermittent operation power consumption and contributes to further energy savings and longer battery life in sensor hubs and sensor application systems.

The RL78/G11 Group concept is based on small packages from 20 to 25 pins, with small 16 KB flash memory and rich analog peripherals such as A/D converters, D/A converters, comparators, and PGA. These are configurable, such as PGA+ADC+V_BGR, PGA+CMP, CMP+DAC/V_BGR, or PGA+CMP+DAC/V_BGR. It also supports very low power operation (100 uA @ 1 MHz) and a high-speed 4 µs wake up. Available in small 3 x 3 mm² WFLGA , 4 x 4 mm² HWQFN and standard 20-pin LSSOP, this MCU Group is suitable for sensor applications, lighting/power sources and various small appliances.

(2) Easy-to-use development environment enables shorter prototyping and evaluation periods

In addition to the standard development environment for the Renesas RL78 Family of 16-bit MCUs, Renesas is developing ultra-compact promotion boards and easy-to-use programming tools for these new devices. These tools will support program debugging and downloading, and can also support prototyping using breadboards and conductive ink pens. The easy-to-use programming tools allow MCU programs to be developed using only GUI operations. Periodical operation using the standby functions is supported. Renesas is moving forward in providing a new easy-to-use development environment that will allow prototyping and evaluation operations to be completed in a single day, where previously it would have taken an entire week.