1-GHz MCUs with AI acceleration feature vision/voice peripherals
Renesas Electronics Corporation has introduced the RA8P1 microcontroller (MCU) group, targeting AI and machine learning applications, as well as real-time analytics.
The MCUs establish a new performance level by combining 1 GHz Arm Cortex-M85 and 250 MHz Cortex-M33 CPU cores with the Arm Ethos-U55 Neural Processing Unit (NPU). This combination delivers the highest CPU performance of over 7300 CoreMarks and AI performance of 256 GOPS at 500 MHz.
RA8P1 MCUs are optimised for edge and endpoint AI applications, using the Ethos-U55 NPU to offload the CPU for compute-intensive operations in Convolutional and Recurrent Neural Networks (CNNs and RNNs) to deliver up to 256 MACs per cycle that yield 256 GOPS performance at 500 MHz. The new NPU supports the most commonly used networks, including DS-CNN, ResNet, MobileNet TinyYolo and more. Depending on the neural network used, the Ethos-U55 provides up to 35x more inferences per second than the Cortex-M85 processor on its own.
The MCUS feature ample memory and advanced security, with dedicated peripherals to address voice and vision AI, as well as real-time analytics applications. A 16-bit camera interface (CEU) is included for vision AI. It supports sensors up to 5 megapixels, enabling camera applications and demanding vision AI. A separate MIPI CSI-2 interface provides a low-pin-count interface with two lanes, each capable of up to 720 Mbps. Audio interfaces, including I2S and PDM, support microphone inputs for voice AI applications are also included.
The RA8P1 offers both on-chip and external memory options for efficient, low-latency neural network processing. The MCU includes 2MB SRAM for storing intermediate activations or graphics framebuffers. 1MB of on-chip MRAM is also available for application code and storage of model weights or graphics assets. High-speed external memory interfaces are available for larger models. SIP options with 4 or 8 MB of external Flash memory are also available in a single package for more demanding AI applications.
The RA8P1 MCUs are manufactured on the 22ULL (22nm ultra-low leakage) process from TSMC, enabling ultra-high performance with very low power consumption. This process also enables the use of embedded Magnetoresistive RAM (MRAM) in the new MCUs, offering faster write speeds, along with higher endurance and retention, compared to Flash.
Along with the RA8P1 MCUs, Renesas has introduced RUHMI (Renesas Unified Heterogenous Model Integration), a comprehensive framework for MCUs and MPUs. RUHMI offers efficient AI deployment of the latest neural network models in a framework-agnostic manner. It enables model optimisation, quantisation, graph compilation, and conversion and generates efficient source code. RUHMI provides native support for machine-learning AI frameworks such as TensorFlow Lite, Pytorch and ONNX. It also provides the necessary tools, APIs, code-generator, and runtime needed to deploy a pre-trained neural network, including ready-to-use application examples and models optimised for RA8P1. RUHMI is integrated with Renesas’s own e2 Studio IDE, allowing seamless AI development. This integration will facilitate a common development platform for MCUs and MPUs.
MCUs with leading security for critical applications
The RA8P1 MCUs feature the new Renesas Security IP (RSIP-E50D), which includes numerous cryptographic accelerators, including CHACHA20, Ed25519, NIST ECC curves up to 521 bits, enhanced RSA up to 4K, SHA-2, and SHA-3. In concert with Arm TrustZone, this provides a comprehensive and fully integrated secure element-like functionality. The MCUs also provide a strong hardware Root-of-Trust and Secure Boot with a First Stage Bootloader (FSBL) in immutable storage. XSPI interfaces with decryption-on-the-fly (DOTF) provide encrypted code images for storage in external Flash. They are then decrypted on the fly as they are securely transferred to the MCU for execution.
Renesas offers a comprehensive range of user-friendly tools and solutions for the RA8P1 MCUs, including the Flexible Software Package (FSP), evaluation kits, and development tools. FreeRTOS and Azure RTOS are supported, as is Zephyr. Several Renesas software example projects and application notes are also available.
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