Expanded equipment control and networking MCUs portfolio for industrial automation

Renesas Electronics Corporation has released the RX72N Group and RX66N Group of 32-bit MCUs, new additions to the RX Family that consolidates equipment control and networking function on a single chip. Constructed around the company's proprietary RXv3 CPU core, the family features a maximum operating frequency of 240MHz and two Ethernet channels, and the RX66N offers a maximum operating frequency of 120MHz and one Ethernet channel.

The new devices offer up to 4MB of on-chip flash memory that perform read operations at a frequency of 120MHz, among the quickest in the industry, as well as 1MB of on-chip SRAM. This ample on-chip memory removes the requirement for external memory, which has slower read speeds and makes it possible to obtain the full performance capacity of the CPU. Also, larger memory capacity allows high-resolution graphics support, such as WVGA, on a single chip, which was not feasible on earlier general-purpose MCUs.

"The new products extend our portfolio of MCU products that combine equipment control and networking function on a single chip, joining the already available RX72M with EtherCAT support, and the mainstream RX65N and RX651 models," said Sakae Ito, vice president of IoT Platform Business Division at Renesas. "The RX Family provides a high level of hardware and software inter-compatibility, making it easy for customers to build a development platform that scales from low-end to high-end products. This year marks the ten year anniversary of RX. We are planning a range of activities to appreciate our loyal RX customers and dedicated partners, which includes the launch of new products such as RX72N and RX66N. We are committed to continue to strengthen RX lineups for many more years to come."