32-bit MCUs from NEC for the automotive market

“In car audio and navigation systems, we are seeing a migration toward consumer electronics-based technologies such as USB, SD card and Bluetooth, in response to growing user demands for smooth transitions between in-car and out-of-car experiences,” said Shinichi Iwamoto, vice president, microcomputer operations unit, NEC Electronics Corporation. “In turn, car manufacturers are demanding MCUs with more built-in memory capacity and lower radiated noise to support the significant increase in software that these media require. Our new V850E/Sx3-H devices enable automotive designers to meet these goals, offering industry-leading memory capacity and improved CPU performance while adhering to strict reliability constraints.”

Augmenting the company’s existing V850ES/SG3 and V850ES/SJ3 MCUs, the newest devices in NEC Electronics’ S Series consist of two lineups: the V850E/SJ3-H and the V850E/SK3-H. In addition to 1.5 megabytes (MB) of flash memory, 1.5 times more capacity than V850ES/Sx3 devices, the V850E/Sx3-H MCUs can execute 85 Dhrystone MIPS at a clock speed of 48 megahertz (MHz), compared to 32 MHz by existing devices. These improvements allow the MCUs to store more software for system control while speeding up software execution time.

For improved reliability, integrated built-in spread spectrum clock generators (SSCG) reduce the MCU clock’s oscillation (fundamental) and higher frequencies, which helps to reduce the risk of degraded radio performance and chip errors. This also decreases the resources required to evaluate and investigate electromagnetic interference (EMI) in anti-EMI components, allowing designers to lower system development costs and shorten development time. Pin layouts and software in the new devices are backward compatible with those in V850ES/SG3 and V850ES/SJ3 models, making it easy for design engineers to leverage existing design assets to avoid incurring additional costs. Serial interface channels include eight UART channels, eight CSI channels and six I2C channels that allow designers to support a larger number of media types.