New microprocessor with enhanced peripherals for IoT edge and gateway devices

Renesas Electronics Corporation has introduced a new 64-bit general-purpose MPU for IoT edge and gateway devices that consumes remarkably less power.

As the latest addition to the company's RZ/G Series MPU, the RZ/G3S is designed to satisfy the demanding needs of modern IoT devices, offering power consumption as low as 10µW in standby mode and fast startup for the Linux operating system. The new MPU has a PCI Express interface that facilitates high-speed connectivity with 5G wireless modules. Also, the device offers enhanced security features such as tamper detection to provide data security. These features make the device excellent for IoT applications such as home gateways, smart meters, and tracking devices.

"Renesas' RZ/G has seen a steady increase in adoption in the global industrial human machine interface market," said Daryl Khoo, vice president of Embedded Processing 1st Division at Renesas. "The RZ/G3S represents the next-generation products that will extend our reach to the rapidly growing 5G IoT and Gigabit Wi-Fi 7 gateway markets. Renesas has been aggressively expanding our connectivity portfolio in these markets through strategic acquisitions to offer advanced connectivity solutions that are power efficient at the system level and enhance data utilisation."

The MPU employs an Arm Cortex-A55 core as the main CPU with a maximum operating frequency of 1.1GHz and two Cortex-M33 cores as sub-CPUs operating at 250MHz. Users can distribute the MPU's workloads to sub-CPUs, enabling the device to handle tasks such as receiving data from sensors, controlling system functions, and managing power systems efficiently. This decreases the workload on the main CPU, resulting in fewer components, lower costs and a smaller system size.

The device's newly added power management system is developed to reduce power consumption to extremely low levels – less than 10µW. The MPU also supports the DDR self-refresh function, which enables the retention of DRAM data while allowing fast Linux startup. The fast startup allows IoT devices, which frequently operate intermittently, to save power and significantly extend the runtime of battery-powered devices. Moreover, the device provides a standby mode that can maintain sub-CPU operation at a power level as low as 40mW, offering the flexibility to optimise power consumption based on the specific operating requirements of each application.

The MPU has various peripheral functions, including Gigabit Ethernet, CAN, USB, and the PCI Express interface. By connecting with 5G communication modules, the device can perform high-speed communication at Gigahertz levels.

Like other RZ/G devices, the MPU features an ECC function in internal memory and external DDR interface to maintain data integrity. The Verified Linux Package (VLP) based on the industrial-grade Linux software (CIP Linux) is available for the MPU. With VLP, developers receive over ten years of maintenance support, ensuring long-term protection against security threats. The device also provides tamper detection, secure boot, secure debug, and more. RZ/G series products are already Level 2 PSA Certified from Arm, and Renesas has plans to include the MPU in the future.

"Our IAR Embedded Workbench for Arm inherently supports both MPUs and MCUs," said Anders Holmberg, CTO at IAR. "By combining Renesas' RZ/G3S MPU, which features a highly secure Root of Trust, with extensive security tool solutions from IAR, developers can rapidly develop high-performance, secure IoT devices and bring them to market faster."