Renesas Electronics has launched its own RISC-V microcontroller R9A02G021 MCU

R9A02G021 is Reza's first 32-bit microcontroller with an internal RISC-V core, opening up a new future for Reza Electronics.

Renesas Electronics (TSE: 6723), a major supplier of advanced semiconductor solutions, announced today the launch of the industry's first general-purpose 32-bit RISC-V microcontroller (MCU) built with an internally developed CPU core. Although many MCU suppliers have recently joined investment alliances to advance the development of RISC-V products, Renesas Electronics has independently designed and tested a new RISC-V core, which has now been implemented in commercial products and launched globally. The new R9A02G021 MCU group provides a clear path for embedded system designers to develop various power sensitive and cost sensitive applications based on the Open Source Instruction Set Architecture (ISA).

Renesas Electronics announced the launch of its first general-purpose 32-bit microcontroller series, which will be built around its internal RISC-V processor core, namely the R9A02G021 series. This series is based on its previous specific application design, targeting power and cost sensitive designs. RISC-V MCUs provide developers with new low-power, high-performance options, and complete toolchain support. Although most RISC-V solutions today are specific to specific applications, the R9A02G021 group of MCUs is designed to serve multiple end markets, such as IoT sensors, consumer electronics, medical devices, small appliances, and industrial systems. Similar to existing general-purpose MCUs, designers will be able to use the R9A02G021 comprehensive development environment provided by Renesas Electronics and its extensive toolchain partner network. This will enable them to significantly reduce costs, engineering resources, and development time.

"From our RISC-V specific ASSP [application specific standard product] to this new general-purpose MCU [microcontroller unit], our goal is to provide commercially viable products that allow customers to quickly mass produce while showcasing their advantages in RISC-V architecture," said Daryl Khoo of Renesas Electronics.

"In addition, customers often face complex design challenges and trade-offs, such as performance, power consumption, memory, or CPU architecture choices. The new RISC-V MCU provides additional choices for customers who want to use the product with an open architecture."

As an early adopter of RISC-V, Renesas Electronics has a wealth of RISC-V specific products, including 32-bit voice control and motor control ASSP devices, as well as the RZ/Live 64 bit general-purpose microprocessor (MPU) R9A02G021 series. The R9A02G021 series is the first generation general-purpose MCU based on the RISC-V core developed internally by Renesas Technology, which will be launched in the coming years.

Tom Hackenberg, Chief Analyst for Computing and Software at More Moore Business, said, "So far, MCU as a key potential market for RISC-V has lacked strong commercial design from leading suppliers, who account for approximately 85% of the MCU market." Yole Group's line. "As Renesas Electronics introduces the comprehensive commercial availability of RISC-V multi market MCUs into its diversified MCU product portfolio, as well as urgent support from well-known industry standard tool suppliers, the RISC-V market will eventually begin to accelerate. As other leading suppliers follow Renesas Electronics' approach, by the end of 2029, RISC-V's share will be close to 10% of the entire MCU market and have enormous growth potential beyond (1)."

Renesas Electronics announced the launch of its first general-purpose 32-bit microcontroller series, which will be built around its internal RISC-V processor core, namely the R9A02G021 series. This series is based on its previous specific application design, targeting power and cost sensitive designs.

"From our RISC-V specific ASSP [application specific standard product] to this new general-purpose MCU [microcontroller unit], our goal is to provide commercially viable products that allow customers to quickly mass produce while showcasing their advantages in RISC-V architecture," said Daryl Khoo of Renesas Electronics.

"In addition, customers often face complex design challenges and trade-offs, such as performance, power consumption, memory, or CPU architecture choices. The new RISC-V MCU provides additional choices for customers who want to use the product with an open architecture."

Renesas Electronics announced its internal processor core design work around the free open source RISC-V instruction set architecture (ISA) as early as November 2023, and is expected to launch a chip early this year. It has now been announced as the R9A02G021 series. However, this is not the company's first RISC-V component: in March 2023, Renesas launched the R9A06G150, an ASSP designed specifically for edge voice workloads, using the built-in AndesCore D25F RISC-V kernel.

R9A02G021 is the first product designed using Rensas's own core, with a single 32-bit processor core and a running frequency of up to 48MHz. It is said to have a Core Mark of 3.27 per megahertz and 16kB of static RAM, with 4kB supporting Error Correction Code (ECC), 128kB code flash, and 4kB data flash. It includes a 12 bit analog-to-digital converter (ADC) and an 8-bit analog-to-digital converter (DAC), UART, SPI, I2C, and software configurable array unit (SAU).

For low-power projects, these microcontrollers only consume 162 in active mode μ A/MHz current, only consuming 0.3 in software standby mode μ The current of A has a wake-up time of 4 μ S. Renesas Electronics has its own e ²  The Studio Integrated Development Environment (IDE), IAR Embedded Workbench IDE and I-jet debugging probes, as well as Segger's Embedded Studio IDE and J-Link debugging probes, all provide support. To showcase its functionality, Renesas Electronics also showcased a reference design for the "winning combination" of an integrated intelligent pressure cooker.

R9A02G021 RISC-V MCU received free e provided by Renesas Electronics to customers ²  Comprehensive support for Studio Integrated Development Environment (IDE). The comprehensive toolchain includes code configurators, LLVM compilers, and fast prototyping boards (FPBs). Renesas Electronics partners also provide a complete development environment: IAR with Embedded Workbench IDE and I-jet debugging probes, as well as SEGGER with Embedded Studio IDE, J-Link debugging probes, and Flasher production programmers. Supporting documents include FPB user manual, getting started guide, schematic, bill of materials (BOM), and Gerber files.