RX610 - Mass Production Launch for the first RX Device
Renesas eXtreme Microcontroller
With the new Renesas eXtreme MCU family Renesas has adopted new technologies that will respond to present and future market requirements to ensure eXtreme processing performance of 1.65 MIPS/MHz, eXtreme fast embedded Flash memory running with 100 MHz, eXtreme code efficiency, eXtreme lower power consumption while retaining best possible compatibility with existing products.
The innovative Renesas solution was to combine the advantages of the high-speed RISC CPU designs refined in their SuperH family with those of the fl exible, code-efficient CISC designs from their H8S/H8SX and M16C/ R32C families. Specifically, to create a nextgeneration CPU architecture, the RX design team added the single precision fl oatingpoint unit and the general-purpose register machine Harvard architecture and 5-stage pipeline of RISC to the byte variable-length instructions of CISC. This clever design approach was made possible by building on decades of MCU design experience and applying a large library of accumulated IP.
RX610 - ready to go!
The RX610 is the first device running under mass production and thus ready for evaluation and design-in. The RX610 group offers 8 devices with a memory capacity between 768 KB and 2 MB. The fl ash memory is of highspeed MONOS (Metal Oxide Nitride Oxide Silicon) structure, that can be accessed at 100 MHz in a single clock cycle. Combined with more than 30% improvement in code efficiency compared to Renesas’ existing products, it is highly useful for large-scale applications that require high-speed processing. In addition, 128 KB of SRAM and a 32 KB of data fl ash memory with background operation function are mounted to eliminate the need for external memory.
In addition to enhanced standard functions such as serial communications and timer, the new products incorporate a variety of popular functions used in existing Renesas products, including DMAC (Direct Memory Access Controller) to perform high-speed data transfer in place of the CPU, DTC (Data Transfer Controller) to make data transfer efficient, and CMT (Compare Match Timer) useful for interrupt and polling.
The new chips, which come in LQFP-144 and BGA-176 packages, integrate an extensive range of built-in legacy, enhanced and new peripheral functions for system design fl exibility. RX610 MCUs also achieve low-power consumption operation with 0.5 mA/MHz. To help customers shorten the development cycles of new embedded systems, Renesas and third-party suppliers like IAR and KPIT support the RX series. The Renesas Starter Kit for RX610 is available at MSC Vertriebs GmbH.
Development work on additional members of the RX600 family is ongoing. The next addition to the RX series will be a product-line called “Connectivity” that will offer more memory and package options as well as incorporate additional peripheral functions like ethernet, USB, CAN.
