Renesas Unveils New RX Family MCUs for Contactless Operations
Renesas Electronics has launched the RX671 group of 32-bit microcontrollers (MCUs), adding a new high-performance, a high-functionality single-chip solution with touch sensing and voice recognition capabilities for the contactless operation to the popular RX Family.
Part of Renesas’ mainstream RX600 Series, the RX671 MCUs are built around an RXv3 CPU core operating at 120 MHz and integrates flash memory supporting fast read access at a clock speed of 60 MHz, for excellent real-time performance with a CoreMark score of 707, and power efficiency among the best in the class at 48.8 CoreMark/mA.
“I am delighted to announce the RX671, which offers the RXv3 CPU core and new functions while maintaining compatibility with the RX651, currently the most popular MCUs in the RX Family lineup,” said Sakae Ito, Vice President of IoT Platform Business Division at Renesas. “RX671will meet the needs of a wide range of customers with its combination of real-time performance, power efficiency, HMI functions, security functions, and many package options.”
Available in a wide variety of packages with pin counts ranging from 48 to 145 pins with up to 2 megabytes (MB) of flash memory and 384 kilobytes (KB) of SRAM, the RX671 MCUs are well suited for a wide range of applications that require advanced functionality, power efficiency, and compact sizes, such as heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC), smart meters, and smart home appliances.
The new RX671 MCU is optimized for contactless applications, integrating a capacitive touch sensing unit that combines high sensitivity with excellent noise tolerance and can be used to implement contactless proximity switches. In addition, the serial sound interface can be used to connect digital microphones that support voice recognition over long distances.
The RX671 integrates Renesas’ Trusted Secure IP as a part of its built-in hardware security engine which comprises an encryption engine with AES, RSA, ECC, and SHA support, a true random number generator (TRNG), and an encrypted key management mechanism.
Renesas also introduced two new evaluation boards with the RX671 group of MCUs. The Target Board for RX671 makes it easy to evaluate the RX671 without the need for a separate debugger; the Renesas Starter Kit+ for RX671 supports detailed evaluation of the MCU’s main functions.
