MCU with built-in analog front end for high-precision sensing and measurement equipment

Renesas Electronics has introduced the RX23E-A Group 32-bit RX MCUs, merging high-precision AFE and an MCU on a single chip. Created for manufacturing and test and measurement equipment applications that need high-precision measurements of analog signals for temperature, weight, pressure, and flow, the MCUs are the first company solutions to allow such signals to be measured with better than 0.1% precision without calibration.

The new MCUs claim to deliver AFE precision at the highest class in the industry (offset drift: 10nV/C, gain drift: 1ppm/C, and RMS noise: 30nVrms), a level that could before only be accomplished by combining dedicated A/D converter circuits with high-precision operational amplifier ICs. By combining this high-precision AFE IP on a single chip utilising the same fabrication process technology, the company has made it possible to achieve high-precision sensor measurement, control, computation, and communications on a single chip. This enables system manufactures to lessen the number of needed components, save space, and simplify system design in a broad range of equipment demanding high-precision measurement, such as sensing, temperature controllers, weighing, recording, and force sensing. It also accelerates endpoint intelligence by enabling distributed processing with MCUs.

“The RX23E-A MCUs will radically evolve the structure of high-precision analog measurement systems,” said Akira Denda, vice president, Industrial Automation Business Division, Renesas Electronics Corporation. “Moving forward, Renesas is aiming to deliver an extensive product line, starting with the RX23E-A Group, that integrates MCUs and high-precision analog on a single chip for programmable logic controllers, distributed control system applications, and test and measurement equipment that require a variety of higher precision measurements.”