Japanese electronics firm Renesas has expanded its RA6 series of microcontrollers (MCUs) with 20 RA6M5 devices offering communications options, on-chip memory and security for IoT designs.

The MCUs have numerous communication interface options, including Can-FD, Ethernet Mac with DMA, USB Full and High Speed, and multiple serial interfaces. These give designers of IoT systems flexibility in sharing critical data.

The MCUs integrate up to 2Mbyte on-chip flash and 512kbyte on-chip RAM, enough to support a wide range of applications. They provide an OctaSPI interface that enables designers to extend the on-chip flash and RAM.

They also support error correction code (ECC) in the RAM. The memory block swap feature, with the intrinsic security built into RA devices, makes the group a suitable choice for applications where in-field firmware updates are required. After new firmware is written to the flash using background operation, a selectable amount of 32kbyte flash blocks can be swapped to the new firmware.

The MCUs use the Arm Cortex-M33 core based on Arm v8-M architecture. They use Arm TrustZonetechnology and Renesas’ secure crypto engine. The crypto engine incorporates multiple symmetric and asymmetric cryptography accelerators, key management, security lifecycle management, power analysis resistance, and tamper detection. The group has the same security features and software support as Renesas’ RA6M4 MCUs, which recently achieved PSA Certified level two and SESIP1 certification.

This combination of features lets users realise secure element functionality, delivering safety and security for highly connected IoT devices.

“The RA6M5 MCU group offers our customers seemingly endless communications options, enabling the flexibility to share data in a wide variety of different ways to address numerous IoT applications,” said Roger Wendelken, senior vice president at Renesas. “This functionality, combined with ample on-chip memory and our industry-leading security features, makes these devices true powerhouses for implementing IoT designs.”

Power consumption is 107µA/MHz in active mode running the CoreMark algorithm from flash at 200MHz. Wakeup time is 30µs.

The devices are scalable from 100- to 176-pin LQFP packages, and are also available in 176-ball BGAs.

The group is supported by a flexible software package (FSP), which includes an HAL driver. The FSP uses a GUI to simplify and accelerate the development process, while making it easy for users to transition from an original 8 or 16bit MCU design. Designers using the MCUs also have access to the Arm partner ecosystem, offering a wide range of tools that help speed time to market.

The MCUs work seamlessly with Renesas’ complementary analogue and power offerings to create comprehensive systems for various applications.