Renesas RL78/G14 Fast Prototyping Board

Renesas Electronics has launched the RL78/G14 Fast Prototyping Board — a function-rich board to enable rapid product development for IoT endpoint equipment. Quicker development prototyping should give users the agility to respond to rapid changes in technology and market needs, and reduce the time-to-market window for new products. Users can combine the RL78/G1D BLE Module Expansion Board with the prototyping board to add Bluetooth Low Energy wireless communication functions with ease.

The prototyping board is based on the RL78/G14 microcontroller (MCU), which provides a rich set of functions that make it suitable for motor control in portable equipment and IoT sensors, as well as IoT endpoint equipment such as home appliances, industrial equipment, building automation and healthcare equipment. The MCU achieves a numerical processing performance of 51.2 DMIPS at 32 MHz, includes up to 512 KB of flash memory and up to 48 KB of RAM, and provides functions such as timers and 8-bit D/A converters. It achieves low levels of current drain, 66 µA/MHZ, when the CPU is operating and 240 nA in standby mode.

The product has an onboard emulator circuit with the same functions as the E2 Emulator (E2 Lite), removing the need to purchase additional debugging tools. The unit provides access to all of the RL78/G14 signal pins and includes Arduino and Pmod interfaces to allow easy functional expansion. Additionally, by combining a Semtech SX1261 or SX1262 LoRa transceiver with the board, prototyping for IoT sensor devices using wireless communication based on LoRa with extended period battery drive becomes possible. Renesas also provides circuit diagrams, parts lists and user manuals necessary to jump-start development, in addition to sample code and application notes.