Renesas Electronics introduces the RA8E1 and RA8E2 MCU groups. The RA8 Series MCUs, which were first released in 2023, are known to be the first to use the Arm Cortex-M85 CPU, which allows them to achieve performance that leads the market at 6.39 Coremark/MHz.
The new RA8E1 and RA8E2 MCUs are great options for high-volume applications like consumer goods, office equipment, healthcare, and home and industrial automation since they have the same performance but a simplified feature set that lowers costs.
This is claimed to be the most powerful MCU series in the industry.
The RA8E1 and RA8E2 MCUs Deploy:
- Arm Helium technology,
- Arm’s M-Profile Vector Extension that provides up to a 4X performance boost for digital signal processor (DSP) and machine learning (ML) implementations versus MCUs based on the Arm Cortex-M7 processor.
- This performance uplift enables applications in the fast-growing field of AIoT where high performance is crucial to execute AI models.
- RA8 Series devices integrate low power features.
- Multiple low power modes to improve power efficiency even while providing industry-leading performance.
- A combination of low power modes, independent power domains, lower voltage range, fast wakeup time and low typical active and standby currents enables lower overall system power and allows customers to lower overall system power consumption and meet regulatory requirements.
- The new Arm Cortex-M85 core also performs various DSP/ML tasks at much lower power.
The Flexible Software Package (FSP) from Renesas supports MCUs of the RA8 Series. By offering all the infrastructure software required—including different RTOS, BSP, peripheral drivers, middleware, connectivity, networking, and TrustZone support—as well as reference software to create intricate AI, motor control, and cloud solutions, the FSP facilitates quicker application development.
Customers can fully customize application development by integrating their own legacy code and preferred RTOS with FSP. The transition of current designs to the new RA8 Series devices will be made easier by using the FSP.
Key Features of the RA8E1 MCUs
- Core: 360 MHz Arm Cortex-M85 with Helium and TrustZone
- Memory: 1MB Flash, 544 KB SRAM (including 32KB TCM w/ ECC, 512KB user SRAM with parity protection), 1KB standby SRAM, 32KB I/D caches
- Peripherals: Ethernet, XSPI (Octal SPI), SPI, I2C, USBFS, CAN-FD, SSI, ADC 12bit, DAC 12bit, HSCOMP, temperature sensor, 8-bit CEU, GPT, LP-GPT, WDT, RTC
- Packages: 100/144 LQFP
Key Features of the RA8E2 MCUs
- Core: 480 MHz Arm Cortex-M85 with Helium and TrustZone
- Memory: 1MB Flash, 672 KB SRAM (including 32KB TCM w/ ECC, 512KB user SRAM with parity protection+128 KB additional user SRAM), 1KB standby SRAM, 32KB I/D caches
- Peripherals: 16-bit external memory I/F, XSPI (Octal SPI), SPI, I2C, USBFS, CAN-FD, SSI, ADC 12bit, DAC 12bit, HSCOMP, temperature sensor, GLCDC,2DRW, GPT, LP-GPT, WDT, RTC
- Packages: BGA 224
Winning Combinations
Renesas offers a variety of Winning Combinations, such as Entry Level Voice & Vision AI System and Human Machine Interface (HMI) for Appliances, by combining the new RA8E1 and RA8E2 MCUs with several compatible devices from its portfolio. These designs are technically tested system architectures from devices that are interoperable with one another and function as a single unit to provide a low-risk, optimized design with a quicker time to market. To help customers expedite the design process and launch their products faster, Renesas provides over 400 Winning Combinations with a variety of products from the Renesas portfolio.
You may find them at renesas.com/win.
Availability
These new Group MCUs are available now, along with the FSP software. Renesas is also shipping a Fast Prototyping Board for the RA8E1 and will offer an RA8E2 Evaluation Kit including a TFT Display in early Q1 2025. More information is available at renesas.com/RA8E1 and renesas.com/RA8E2. Samples and kits can be ordered either on the Renesas website or through distributors.
Key Comments
“Our customers love the superior performance of the RA8 MCUs and are now looking for more feature optimized versions combined with high performance for their cost-sensitive industrial, vision AI and mid-end graphics applications,” said Daryl Khoo, Vice President of Embedded Processing 1st Business Division at Renesas. “The RA8E1 and RA8E2 deliver the right balance of performance and features for those markets and, with FSP, enable easy migration within the RA8 Series or from RA6 MCUs.”
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