Renesas Launches Low-Power, High-Performance RX260, RX261 Touch-Ready Microcontroller Families
New chips include a 36-channel capacitive touch controller able to reject noise from wet electrodes, optional security subsystem, and more.
Renesas has announced the launch of new, power-efficient microcontrollers with integrated touch-sensing capabilities and optional USB and CAN FD support: the Renesas RX260 and RX261 groups, built atop the company's RXv3 core.
"The RX130 and RX230 have seen great market success, and the new RX260/261 products provide an upgrade path with an advanced RX CPU core and enhanced performance and peripherals based on customer requests," says Renesas' Daryl Khoo of the company's latest microcontroller parts. "We have built a great relationship with RX customers around the world based on Renesas MCU [Microcontroller Unit] core technology and years of innovation, including patented technology. The RX MCUs have established a unique place in the industry, and Renesas will continue to develop RX products as long as our customers want them."
The new Renesas RX260 and RX261 microcontrollers are based on the company's 32-bit RXv3 core running at 64MHz, delivering a claimed 355 CoreMarks — which, Renesas says, is more than twice that of "competing 64MHz-class MCUs." In another favorable comparison to the competition, Renesas claims the parts deliver better power efficiency with a 25 per cent reduction in active current and 87 per cent in standby current — measured by the company at 69μA/MHz active and 1μA standby respectively.
The chips offer up to 128kB of static RAM, 512kB of program flash and 8kB of data flash, and general-purpose input/output (GPIO) connectivity including a dedicated remote control signal channel, seven UARTs that also offer "simple SPI/I2C" bus support, one each dedicated SPI and I2C buses, a 24-channel 12-bit analog to digital converter, a two-channel comparator, a two-channel eight-bit digital to analog converter (DAC), and an on-board temperature sensor — plus 36 channels of capacitive touch sensing, delivered through Renesas' third-generation CTSU2SL touch IP and supporting water-resistant touch detection.
The RX260 and RX261 are near-identical in features and performance for the most part, with the RX261 pulling ahead with additional peripherals — a USB Full Speed controller and a CAN FD bus — and a Renesas RSIP-E11A security subsystem. This latter feature stands on top of the memory protection and unique identifier available on the RX260 and adds hardware acceleration for AES cryptography, SHA hashing, and error correcting code (ECC), a true random number generator (TRNG), and systems for key and access management.
More information on the parts, including pricing for each model in the two families, is available on the Renesas RX260 and RX261 product pages.