Press Releases for Europe 

11th November, Electronica, Munich - Renesas Technology Europe today announced a major expansion of its popular M16C microcontroller platform*1 with the addition of USB 2.0 device class support. The M16C/6C group comprises 16 different models, and the new devices are fully compatible with earlier versions. The USB 2.0 specification compliant, 12 Mbps full-speed interface supports the standard transfer types of control, bulk and interrupt. The supporting FIFO is 584 bytes. Featuring the high-performance M16C/60 16-bit CISC CPU core, running at speeds up to 32 MHz, the devices operate between 2.7 to 5.5 VDC.

“The integrated USB peripherals of the M16C/6C, will open the M16C Platform to be used in a broad range of applications requiring connectivity as well as keeping the ease-of-use and compatibility to previous M16C products”, said Bernd Westhoff, Product Marketing of the Renesas Technology Europe CID BU, “We believe the M16C/6C will meet the customers expectation for a 16-bit general purpose microcontroller with USB 2.0 interface. With a high degree of integration this could help reduce system BOM to a minimum, e.g. due to single clock and voltage supply perspective.”
Other new features include a power-on reset (POR) function, a low-voltage detection (LVD) circuit, real-time clock (RTC), high-precision (40MHz) on-chip oscillator and a watchdog timer with an independent oscillator (125kHz). A hardware multi-master I2C-bus has also been added in place of the simplified I2C-bus.
In addition, on-chip peripheral functions have been improved to include a fast A/D converter, 6 USART, CRC unit and 4 DMA controllers. The 10-bit A/D converter achieves a fast conversion speed of 1.72 μs and offers 26 channels. The devices are available with on-chip Flash and RAM memory in density combinations of 128kB/12kB, 256kB/20kB, 384kB/31kB and 512kB/31kB. The ICs also have an extra flash memory for data storage. Two banks of 4kB DataFlash*2 each with an endurance of 10,000 cycles in both read and write operations, as well as a bank of 16kB to store a customised boot-loader are included.

Typical applications include EPOS barcode scanners, measurement equipment and a broad range of industrial equipment.

The new E8a on-chip debugging emulator is available as a development environment. The E8a can also be used as a flash programmer. A RSK starter-kit with supporting USB drivers is scheduled to be available shortly.

Currently being sampled, the M16C/6C group will be generally available soon.

Notes to editors
1. M16C Platform family are CISC microcontrollers, comprising a varied product lineup of 16-bit and 32-bit products in the M16C Series, M32C Series and R32C Series. Features include highly efficient C-language support, excellent noise characteristics, low power consumption, and comprehensive on-chip peripheral functions. The range of low-end to high-end series featuring the same architecture, pin assignment compatibility, and peripheral function upward-compatibility provides support for a wide range of application areas, including the automotive, industrial, and consumer fields.

2. DataFlash is Renesas’ own flash memory for data storage.