Renesas targets ultra low power with RX200

The first member in a new ultra low power family of MCUs from Renesas extends the RX range in to portable appliances. Using the same 32bit CISC RX core, the RX200 family lowers power consumption and operational voltage, with a deep sleep mode that requires just 1.3µA while maintaining the real-time clock.

The first RX200 series in the RX210 group, which will operate at a maximum clock frequency of 50MHz producing 78 Dhrystone MIPS, with zero wait-states when operating from flash memory. When running from a supply voltage of between 2.7 and 5.5V it will consume 0.21mA/DMIPS at 50MHz, or 10.5mA.

A multi-stage internal voltage regulator enables the RX210 to operate at up to 32MHz from 1.8V, or 20MHz at 1.62V while still able to erase and programme the on-board flash memory. Additional features have been included to support the IEC 60730 appliance safety standard.

The initial release of devices in the RX210 Group offer flash memory from 128kbyte to 512kbyte, an 8kbyte E2 data flash with 100,000 erase cycles, and up to 64kbyte of SRAM.

Many key peripherals are included such as fast 1µs 12bit ADCs with three sample-hold circuits linked to timer systems; serial channels including USART and I2C interfaces; a full-function RTC with three tamper-detection inputs; analogue comparators; 10bit DAC; a temperature sensor; optional CPU external bus; direct memory access (DMA) controllers; a special event link controller (ELC) to sequence events across peripherals without disturbing the CPU; on-chip high- and low-speed oscillators, and complete system supervisor functions.

This article originally appeared on EE Times Europe.