Renesas Electronics Corp. says its RX65N and RX651 groups of 32-bit microcontrollers (MCUs) will be released soon. The RX65N/RX651 groups can be used in application fields including networked industrial machinery and building automation.

Previous Renesas microcontrollers have been used previously in industrial machinery fields (no credit; free stock photo) The company says the MCUs can help manufacturers increase the basic performance of their systems while adding the ability to safely reprogram the MCU’s built-in memory over a network such as wireless local area network or Ethernet. This, says Renesas, makes it easier to develop end devices that allow changes to machine settings or control programs, as well as help flexible machine control accommodate changes in the installation environment or end-user requirements.

Features of the RX65N and RX651 MCU Groups include: 40nm process for five times the power efficiency of competing MCUs of the same class and extended battery operation time; an RXv2 CPU core that delivers 1.3 times the processing performance of comparable 32-bit MCUs in the 120 MHz operating frequency class; and the potential to reduce development time by about 20%.

Renesas says the expansion of the Industrial Internet of Things and Industry 4.0 has increased the need for secure network connectivity devices in manufacturing environments, making it crucial for system manufacturers to have the capability to safely reprogram firmware or data in the MCU’s on-chip flash memory to update machine control functions in a timely manner.