Renesas Electronics announces the RL78/G11 Group of microcontrollers (MCUs), a group of small-package, low-power MCUs that will enable users to easily and more quickly prototype and develop systems that support low-power sensor hubs and sensor application systems. Designed to connect to multiple sensors and convert the sensor output signals to digital data, these compact sensor hubs are used in a wide range of applications, such as computer operating environment monitoring for data center thermocouples in the industrial area, wearable health management devices in the healthcare field, and environmental sensing in greenhouses and factory farms in the agricultural industry.
The influx of information generated by big data combined with improvements in automation and sensor functions are opening new opportunities to improve business operations and ultimately contribute to improved quality of life. This has been true in many areas, notably in the industrial, healthcare, and agricultural areas.
In the industrial area, there are hopes for improving the efficiency of cooling and air conditioning by monitoring operation environments of computers and key communication equipment in data centers, and predicting failures by collecting and analyzing operating data. In the healthcare area, the data recording and analysis of blood pressure, pulse rate, and other data by wearable equipment could support day-to-day health maintenance and lead to the early discovery of diseases. In the agricultural area, monitoring the growth environment and conditions for crops with environmental sensors could lead to both cost savings, i.e., in fertilizers and heating and lighting costs, and improved crop quality overall. Increasingly higher-level sensing and even more sensors are required for these sorts of technology deployments, and the associated increased power consumption has become an issue, especially in battery-operated equipment.
Key features of the RL78/G11:
1) Support for up to 13 sensors in a 24-pin package
The RL78/G11 Group of MCUs supports the industry’s largest number of sensors (Note 1) in an MCU with 24 pins. The 24- and 25-pin versions of these new MCUs support 11 analog input channels and six serial communications channels. Even with the 24-pin compact package, the RL78/G11 MCUs can support signal inputs from a maximum of 13 sensors. Processing of the signal inputs from the sensors by the built-in analog functions and serial communications (reception) functions that operate even in standby mode allows low-power control, even in systems with multiple sensors.
2) Easy-to-use development environment enables shorter prototyping and evaluation periods
In addition to the standard development environment for the Renesas RL78 Family of 16-bit MCUs, Renesas is developing ultra-compact promotion boards and easy-to-use programming tools for these new devices. These tools will support program debugging and downloading, and can also support prototyping using breadboards and conductive ink pens. The easy-to-use programming tools allow MCU programs to be developed using only GUI operations. Periodical operation using the standby functions is supported. Renesas is moving forward in providing a new easy-to-use development environment that will allow prototyping and evaluation operations to be completed in a single day, where previously it would have taken an entire week.
Further information about Renesas Electronics Europe is available at http://www.renesas.com.
