Renesas Expands RX600 MCU Series Offering 256 kB Embedded RAM

“The new RX63N/RX631 MCUs with 256 kB embedded RAM mark the next stage in our on-going miniaturisation process, using our current 90nm enhanced 100MHz zero wait state MONOS process technology,” said Bernd Westhoff, RX Product Manager at Renesas Electronics Europe. “The new products aim to provide the best benefits to our customers in terms of integration and attractive cost structure, paired with the fastest operational embedded Flash technology. These devices are just the right choice for any application where large communication stacks need to be kept in a single chip solution without external memory considerations.”

The new RX63N/RX631 groups achieve high performance of 165 DMIPS at 100 MHz CPU and flash operation. The new products offer a wide and scalable product extension from 1 MB to 2 MB flash integration by keeping 256 kB RAM for all of these product variations. In addition, all these products integrate 32 kB of E2 data flash memory that supports 100,000 rewrite cycles for easy data storage. The package type is LQFP package, allowing Renesas to provide products appropriate for a wide variety of embedded equipment supporting 100-pin to 176-pin.

As a new feature, these RX63N/RX631 models integrate an optional Data Encryption Unit which enables customers to use encryption/decryption functions according to the AES standard. The encryption engine supports AES (128, 192 and 256-bit key length).

The other features are same as existing RX63N/RX631 groups up to three channels of Controller Area Network 2.0B compliant interfaces, two Universal Serial Bus full speed hosts, USB OTG and device features and an Ethernet MAC IEEE 802.3 interface, compliant with Media Independent Interface and Reduced Media Independent Interface, for easy connection to a PHY (RX63N only).

The RX63N/RX631 groups of MCUs (without 64 and 48-pin packages) also include an EXDMAC unit that can transfer data over an external bus independently of the internal bus occupation. This allows these MCUs to easily support TFT solutions for up to QVGA or WQVGA class TFT panels, even if there is no dedicated LCD controller used in the application.

These new devices include a real-time clock that reduces power consumption by offering 2 V real-time clock operation, resulting in a massive power saving compared to earlier products. The RTC module includes an anti-tamper detection function that independently detects system state changes with three pins while the CPU is in the power off state and not operating. It also assigns timestamps.

For the development environment, Renesas Electronics provides two emulator products: the low-cost E1 Emulator, which also functions as a flash programmer, and the high-functionality E20 Emulator, which includes trace, RAM monitoring, and other advanced functions. Third party J-Link debuggers are also available.

The new RX63N/RX631 devices with 256 kB RAM will be available by December 2013 in mass production. However, customers can begin development today by using the RX63N Renesas Starter Kit with 2 MB Flash and 128 kB RAM version mounted, which are available now. A drop-in replacement at a later date would be straightforward.