Renesas Electronics introduces the RH850 series of microcontrollers for automotive electronics applications

     Renesas Electronics announced the launch of the new RH850 Series 32-bit microcontrollers (MCUS) for automotive electronics applications. The RH850 uses 40 nanometer (nm) MONOS (metal nitrous oxide silicon oxide) embedded flash memory technology, making Renesas the first semiconductor manufacturer to offer this advanced technology in automotive electronics applications. RH850 series MCUS use the new RH850 32-bit core, with the world's leading 32-bit core to demonstrate superior computing power, perfect to present the advantages of ultra-low power process technology.

     The RH850 series is the latest product line developed by NEC Electronics and Renesas Technology after their merger in April 2010, which continues the outstanding achievements, product reliability and expertise of both companies in the field of automotive electronics.

     The Renesas RH850 addresses key changing market trends in various segments of the automotive industry, including functional safety requirements from ASILA to ASILD grades, integrated information security features, and ultra-low power consumption designed to be environmentally friendly, such as reducing CO2 emissions. The RH850 series is capable of delivering performance classes from 64MHz to 320MHz in a single core, and multi-core systems will achieve higher overall performance. Its embedded flash memory ranges from 256KB to 8MB, includes additional modules that mimic EEPROM functions, and can provide 125,000 erase operations and data storage for at least 20 years.

     The new product family will include a product lineup tailored for multiple uses and fully equipped with the RH850's 32-bit kernel architecture. The family will also extend single core, dual performance core, dual lock step core, and multi-core architectures to meet virtually all performance and security requirements for 32-bit MCUS in various automotive markets. Renesas' range of concepts, combined with expandable functional IP modules, memory and pin count, gives customers the freedom to expand or shrink without changing the application software to choose the product that best meets their needs.

     In order to ensure the compatibility of customer software, all product families have adopted the same platform development concept, and the same IP is repeatedly applied throughout the RH850 generation product.

     The Integrated development Environment (IDE) will be able to support the full range of RH850 products, making it easier for customers to migrate from their current products to the new platform and further reducing overall development costs.