Renesas Electronics Corporation introduced the RA8M2 and RA8D2 microcontroller (MCU) groups. Based on a 1 GHz Arm®? Cortex®?-M85 processor with an optional 250 MHz Arm®?-M33 processor, the new MCUs are the latest Renesas offerings to deliver an unmatched 7300 Coremarks of raw compute performance, the industry benchmark for MCUs.
Both RA8D2 and RA8M2 devices are ultra-high performance MCUs as part of the second generation of the RA8 Series - the RA8M2 are general-purpose devices, and the RA8D2 MCUs are packed with a variety of high-end graphics peripherals. They are built on the same high-speed, low-power 22-nm ULL process used for the RA8P1 and RA8T2 devices introduced earlier this year. The devices include single and dual core options, and a specialized feature set to address the needs of a broad base of compute intensive applications.
They take advantage of the high performance of the Arm Cortex-M85 processor and Arm's Helium?? technology to offer a significant performance boost for digital signal processor (DSP) and machine learning (ML) implementations. The RA8M2 and RA 8D2 devices offer embedded MRAM that has several advantages over Flash technology - highurance & data retention, faster writes, no erase needed, and byte addressable with lower leakage and manufacturing costs.
SIP options with 4 or 8 MB of external flash in a single package are also available for more demanding applications. Both the RA8M2 andRA8D2 MCUs include Gigabit Ethernet interfaces and a 2-port TSN switch to address industrial networking use cases. The RA8D2 MCUs provide a plethora of features and functions for graphics and HMI applications: High resolution Graphics LCD Controller supports up to 1280x800 displays with both parallel RGB and 2-lane MIPI DSI interfaces Two-Dimensional Drawing Engine offloads the graphics rendering tasks from the CPU and supports graphics primitives.
Multiple camera interface options enable camera and vision AI applications, 16-bit camera interface (CEU) with support for image data fetch, processing and format conversion. MIPI CSI-2 interface offers a low pin-count interface with 2 lanes, each up to 720Mbps. A VIN module performs vertical and horizontal scaling and format and color space conversions of YUV and RGB data inputs received from the MIPI CSI-2 interfaces.
Audio interfaces such as I2S and PDM support digital microphone inputs for audio and voice AI applications. Comprehensive graphics solution with embedded graphics GUI packages from SEGGER emWin and Microsoft GUIX, integrated into Renesas' FSP. Software JPEG decoder optimized for Helium, available with both emWin and GUIX solutions, allows decode of JPEG images with up to 27fps end-to-end graphics performance with Helium acceleration.
Multiple graphics ecosystem partners such as Embedded Wizard, Envox, LVGL and SquareLine Studio are offering solutions that employ RA8D2 using Helium to accelerate graphics functions and JPEG decoding. Key Features of the RA8M2 andra8D2 Group MCUs: Core: 1 GHz Arm Cortex-M85 with Helium; Using the FSP will ease migration of existing designs to the new RA8 Series devices. Renesas has combined the new RA8 Group MCUs with numerous compatible devices from its portfolio to offer a wide array of winning Combinations, including the Smart Glasses and Pet Camera Robot for the RA8M2, and bothi Wireless Power Transceiver System (Tx) and Ki Wireless Power Receiver System (Rx) for the RA8D2.
The RA8M2 Group MCUs are available now, along with the FSP software. The RA8M2 group MCUs are available now, with the FSP software.
