New Low Power Embedded Controllers with 256 kB Flash Memory for Compact Portable Designs

Published  July 3, 2020   0
 Renesas' RE01 Family Embedded Controllers

The Renesas Electronics Corporation has introduced a new 256kilobyte(KB) flash memory variant to the RE01 Family embedded controllers that include the 1.5 megabytes (MB) flash memory embedded controller. The new ultra-low power consumption controller is designed based on the breakthrough silicon-on-thin-buried-oxide (SOTB) process technology and it is built around the Arm Cortex-M0+ core. The SOTB process technology provides an extreme reduction in both active and standby current consumption, making it an EEMBC ULPMark certified device with a CoreProfile (CP) Score of 705.

The new controller has a low current consumption of 25μA/MHz during operation and 400 nA during standby, customer can also reduce the operations current consumption further to 12 μA/MHz by using Renesas’ ultra-low Iq ISL9123 as an external step-down regulator.

Features of new RE01 Group R7F0E01182xxx

  • 256 KB flash memory and 128 KB SRAM
  • Software standby: 400 nA
  • Operating voltage range: 1.62V - 3.6V with the high-speed operation of up to 64 MHz from 1.62V
  • Support for flash programming on approximately 0.6 mA of power
  • Deep standby with a real-time clock (RTC) operating 380 nA at 1.8Vss

The 256KB controller is available in a 3.16mm x 2.88mm LBGA package and it is optimized to be used in more compact product designs in IoT devices for sensor control, for applications such as smart homes, smart buildings, environmental sensing, structure monitoring, trackers, and wearable devices.

The new device dramatically extends the battery life of embedded devices and it is capable of high-speed operations in applications that require real-time data processing from multiple sensors, even when powered by compact batteries with very small current output or by energy harvesting devices. The EK-RE01 256 KB Evaluation Kit can be used in combination with user systems to evaluate all peripheral functions, including energy harvesting systems.