Enhanced security and privacy for Bluetooth 5.0 Low Energy connections

Renesas Electronics has introduced what is claimed to be the first RA MCU with an integrated Bluetooth 5.0 Low Energy radio. The single-chip RA4W1 MCU incorporates a 48 MHz, 32-bit Arm Cortex-M4 core and Bluetooth 5.0 core provided in a 56-pin QFN package. Together, the MCU and easy-to-use FSP allow engineers to instantly begin development with Arm ecosystem software and hardware building blocks that work out-of-the-box with RA MCUs.

The MCU makes it simple for embedded designers to develop safe and secure IoT endpoint devices for Industry 4.0, building automation, healthcare, consumer wearable, metering, and home appliance applications. The MCU is also excellent for developing IoT edge devices for wireless sensor networks, IoT hubs, an add-on to gateways, and an aggregator to IoT cloud applications.

“While offering an MCU with Bluetooth 5.0 connectivity is not new to Renesas, the addition of the RA4W1 enables our customers to easily adopt Bluetooth 5.0,” said Sakae Ito, vice president of IoT Platform Business Division at Renesas. “Customers can also take full advantage of the on-chip MCU features, including Secure Crypto Engine to implement strong key management for the ultimate IoT security, and best-in-class output power consumption and sensitivity to achieve a superior link budget for longer range applications.”