Japanese electronics company Renesas has introduced a family of microcontrollers for space-constrained, energy sensitive IoT endpoint, wearable, medical, industrial automation and other consumer and home appliance applications.

The RA2E2 range is based on an Arm Cortex-M23 core and is part of the firm’s 32bit RA family. They combine low power consumption with peripherals targeted at IoT endpoint applications and space-saving packaging options including a 16-pin WLCSP (wafer level chip scale package) device measuring 1.87 by 1.84mm.

The 48MHz group enables fast design cycles and easy upgrades from other RA family devices.

The devices can address the needs of IoT endpoint applications, including wearables, medical devices, appliances and industrial automation. They consume 81µA/MHz in active mode with software standby current of 200nA with fast wakeup. Temperature range is -40 to +125˚C for harsh IoT operating environments.

The group supports an I³C bus interface and integrates peripheral functions, including an on-chip oscillator with precision of ±1%, power on reset and low voltage detector, EEPROM, and a temperature sensor.

There are more than 160 parts is the RA family ranging from 48 to 200MHz. Security options include Arm TrustZonetechnology.

All devices are supported by the Renesas FSP flexible software programme that includes efficient drivers and middleware to ease the implementation of communications and security. The FSP’s GUI simplifies and accelerates the development process. It enables flexible use of legacy code as well as compatibility and scalability with other RA family devices. Designers using FSP also have access to the Arm ecosystem, offering tools that help speed time-to-market, as well as Renesas’ partner network.

“We see increasing demand for 32bit MCUs in low-pin-count IoT endpoint applications, and the RA2E2 group addresses that market need with the right features and performance,” said Roger Wendelken, senior vice president at Renesas. “Our RA family now offers solutions from 16 to 176 pins and from 48 to 200MHz performance, all supported by our FSP that enables easy and fast transition of design IP between different devices.”

The RA2E2 group includes nine devices spanning from 16-pin to 24-pin packages, and from 16 to 64kbyte of flash memory along with 8kbyte of SRAM. The devices also include 2kbyte of data flash memory, a feature that other low-pin count devices don’t provide.

They are also said to be the only MCUs in their class to offer an I³C bus interface, delivering high-speed communications of 4.6Mbit/s while reducing power consumption. Security features a include a cryptography accelerator (AES256/128), a true random number generator and memory protection units.

Package options range from the 16-WLCSP to 20- and 24-pin QFN.