32-bit MCUs for healthcare home appliances and industry, with capacitive touch
Part of Renesas’ RX100 Series, these MCUs offer a single-chip solution with touch sensor IP and low-power technologies. Renesas’ claims for its touch sensor intellectual property (IP) core include high noise immunity and high sensitivity, offering touch key operation on wet and curved touch panels.
Based on Renesas’ RX CPU core, the RX113 Group of MCUs delivers performance, lowest power, advanced connectivity and digital signal processing (DSP) capability in an entry-level 32-bit MCU. In addition to a capacitive-touch sensing unit and ultra-low power, these full-featured 32-bit MCUs also support LCD control, USB 2.0, and audio. The RX113 devices support multiple memory configurations and communications peripherals to keep pace with expanding embedded systems design requirements, including:
• Up to 512 kB of flash memory and 64 kB of SRAM
• Segment LCD control/drive capability up to 288 segments for support of the latest system displays
• I2S for audio processing, SSI (Serial Sound Interface) and SPI (serial peripheral interface) protocols
• 12-bit ADC with internal voltage reference, a 12-bit DAC and a temperature sensor
• Complete DSP Processing capability, including hardware-based divide, for efficient near-sensor processing
The RX113 MCUs support both mutual- and self-capacitance methods for key manipulation detection. The Capacitive Touch sensing unit supports up to 36 channels of key input (in mutual-capacitance mode). The self-capacitance method provides improved noise immunity and sensitivity compared to previous implementations. The new MCUs also support Renesas Electronics’ first mutual-capacitance method, which allows touch key operation even when the user is wearing gloves and is highly resistant to incorrect detection even when there is water on the touch key area itself. The Capacitive Touch sensing unit supports acrylic panels over 10 mm thick, which allows for flexible designs, such as those using curved panels, to be implemented. Renesas has improved the sensitivity by approximately 5 times, enabling user interfaces with non-traditional surfaces (e.g., wet panels or gloves) to be implemented.
The RX Family delivers flexible power management and optimum power consumption for all use cases. The 32-bit RX113 MCUs achieve highest levels of power efficiency, featuring operating mode power consumption as low as 0.1 mA/MHz (typical) and only 0.44 µA power consumption in low-power mode (RAM contents retained). They also achieve power consumption as low as 1.6 µA in LCD drive mode (internal step-up and 1/3 bias operation).
The RX113 Group has three different run modes, three low-power modes and a flexible clock system. For instance, the Low Power Fast Wakeup capability enables the MCUs to operate at 0.1 mA/MHz in Run Mode and 0.44 µA in software standby from which it can wake-up in only 4.8 µsec. It integrates a Zero Wait State Flash with Erase/Write as low as 1.8V, 1 kB erase block size and background operation (BGO), and offers erase times as low as 10 msec per block.
Renesas provides a comprehensive development ecosystem for the RX Family, including e2 studio, an Eclipse-based IDE, as well as compilers, debuggers, code generation tools and flash programmers. The RX113 devices will be supported by the RX ecosystem, comprising a wide range of third-party tools, RTOS, and middleware. Support for the IAR compiler and IAR Embedded Workbench IDE and for the Micrium RTOS and Spectrum components is available.
Samples of the RX113 MCUs are available now in package pin counts ranging from 64 to 100 pins and on-chip flash memory capacities ranging from 128 to 512 kilobytes (kB) for a total of twelve individual products. Mass production is scheduled to begin in February 2015 and is expected to reach a combined volume of 1,000,000 units per month by January 2016.
Renesas Electronics Europe; www.renesas.eu
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