Renesas launches ultra-low-power MCU with advanced security for smart devices

Renesas Electronics Corp.’s RA4C1 microcontroller (MCU) group, based on an 80-MHz Arm Cortex M33 processor, offers ultra-low power consumption, advanced security features, abundant communication interfaces, and segment LCD support.

This unique set of features and performance metrics is ideal for battery-powered applications that need strict security, including gas, water, and industrial flow meters, as well as smart locks, thermostats, building controls and industrial user interfaces. These new MCUs exactly match the requirements for system control applications used in utility meters worldwide.

The RA4C1 MCUs employ proprietary low-power technology that delivers 168µA/MHz active mode at 80MHz and standby current of less than 1.79µA with all the SRAM retained, the RA4C1 also support a real-time clock (RTC) with its own dedicated power domain, supporting easy battery backup for the time. This exceptional performance, coupled with support for input voltages as low as 1.6V, helps customers to design battery-powered applications that use smaller batteries or provide higher performance for the existing battery size.

Strong security is an essential requirement for metering systems. The RA4C1 MCUs offer an RSIP-300 security engine that provides an isolated subsystem managed and protected by dedicated control logic. The new devices also include support for a 256-bit hardware unique key and True Random Number Generator (TRNG), key management functionality with the ability to generate wrapped keys, SHA algorithms, hardware acceleration of AES, and ECC supporting NIST and Brainpool curves with a key length of up to 384 bits.

Renesas’ new MCUs also provide a feature set that meets all the needs of metering system designers. A 512 Kbyte dual bank on-chip flash enables easy and secure software updates with 96 kbytes of SRAM and 8 kbytes of dataflash for on chip data storage. Peripherals include a low-power ADC, an on-chip temperature sensor accurate to 1 percent, and an on-chip LCD controller to drive low power segment displays.

The RA4C1 MCUs are supported by Renesas’ Flexible Software Package (FSP). The FSP enables faster application development by providing all the infrastructure software needed, including multiple RTOS, BSP, peripheral drivers, middleware, connectivity, networking, and TrustZone support as well as reference software to build complex AI, motor control and cloud solutions. It allows customers to integrate their own legacy code and choice of RTOS with FSP, thus providing full flexibility in application development. The FSP eases migration of existing IP to and from either RA6 or RA2 Series devices.