Renesas launches 64bit RISC-V microprocessors with ARM compatibility
Renesas Electronics, the world’s biggest microcontroller supplier, has entered the 64bit RISC-V market with parts that are pin compatible with competing ARM devices.
The 64bit RZ/Five general-purpose microprocessors (MPUs) uses the AX45MP RISC-V core from Andes Technology and are pin compatible with the ATM Cortex A55/M33 controllers.
The peripheral functions and package of RZ/Five are deliberately compatible with those of the ARM-based RZ/G2UL, allowing for easy reuse of existing designs. The RZ/Five also comes in a smaller, compact package to address less complex designs more efficiently.
As with the RZ/G Series, the RISC-V family supports Civil Infrastructure Platform (CIP) Linux, an industrial-grade Linux offering long-term maintenance support for more than 10 years. This is aimed at corporate infrastructure and industrial applications that require a high level of reliability and extended service life. It also allows users to dramatically reduce future Linux maintenance costs.
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“I am delighted that Renesas is among the first to announce a general-purpose MPU built around a 64-bit RISC-V CPU core from Andes,” said Hiroto Nitta, Senior Vice President and Head of SoC Business in the IoT and Infrastructure Business Unit at Renesas. “With the introduction of the RZ/Five MPUs along with ecosystem support, Renesas is taking the lead in providing RISC-V solutions ahead of the market.”
“RZ/Five is the first general-purpose MPU on the market to be built around a 64-bit RISC-V core from Andes,” said Frankwell Lin, Chairman and CEO at Andes Technology Corp. “Andes has collaborated with Renesas first on the 32-bit RISC-V core and now on the 64-bit AX45MP, and I anticipate that this development will lead to the early adoption of customers’ devices in the global market built with Andes’ advanced RISC-V processor families.”
The RZ/Five family operates up to 1GHz and is aimed at IoT endpoint designs, such as gateways for solar inverters or home security systems, to collect sensor data and connect to servers or to the cloud.
Renesas’ position as the leading microcontroller supplier means peripheral functions are a key element of a designers analysis of the choice of microcontroller. The RZ/Five family supports two Gigabit Ethernet channels, two USB 2.0 channels, and two CAN channels, as well as dual 12bit analog-to-digital (ADC) converter modules. Support is also provided for connecting external DDR memory with error checking and correction (ECC) and security functions.
The RZ SMARC Evaluation Board Kit offers a module board conforming to the SMARC 2.1 standard, equivalent to the currently available environment for the RZ/G Series. This allows switching and evaluating between an RZ/Five CPU module and an RZ/G2UL CPU module, enabling easy evaluation and shortening product development cycles.
Renesas will provide a complete system solution for the RZ/Five CPU module including Renesas’ DA9062 power management IC, 5P35023 programmable clock generator, AT25QL128A flash memory and SLG46538 GreenPAK IC implementing peripheral functions such as system reset.
Samples of the RZ/Five MPUs are available starting today, and mass production is scheduled to begin in July 2022.
https://www.renesas.com/rzfive.
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