Renesas RL78 microcontroller family

Renesas has introduced the RL78 microcontroller family to deliver solutions for next-generation 8-/16-bit embedded applications. The family integrates features from both the R8C and the 78K (78K0, 78K0R) families to deliver lower power, enhanced performance and higher integration.

The products are built around the RL78 CPU core, which is based on the low-power, high-performance 78K0R CPU core and incorporates an extensive range of peripheral functions from the R8C and 78K families, making them suitable for a number of applications including battery-operated devices and household applications.

The new MCUs achieve low power consumption, with an operating current of 70 µA/megahertz (MHz) and standby current of 0.7 µA with the real-time clock and low-voltage detection functions active.

The family’s power-efficient design, based on a 130 nm process node, can deliver 41 Dhrystone (Dhrystone 2.1) million instructions per second when operating at 32 MHz.

The new MCUs’ processing enables higher integration of on-chip components such as a 32 MHz ±1% on-chip oscillator (target value), data flash with background operation supporting up to a million rewrite cycles (target value), and 1.6 to 5.5 V operation.

These features provide greater functionality while reducing overall system cost, which are vital requirements for the next-generation 8-bit designs.