Renesas adds capacitive touch to ultra-low-power RA0 MCUs
Renesas has introduced the RA0L1 microcontroller (MCU) Group based on the Arm Cortex-M23 processor. The new devices offer low power consumption and a solution for quickly and economically implementing capacitive touch in battery-powered and other consumer electronics, appliances, white goods and industrial system controls.
RA0L1 MCUs deliver power consumption of only 2.9mA current in active mode, and 0.92mA in sleep mode. In addition, an integrated High-speed On-Chip Oscillator (HOCO) enables the fastest wake-up time for this class of microcontroller. The fast wake-up enables the RA0L1 MCUs to stay in Software Standby mode more of the time, where power consumption drops to a minuscule 0.25 µA. With this feature, current consumption can be reduced by up to 90 percent.
The RA0L1 devices have a feature set optimised for cost-sensitive applications. They offer a wide operating voltage range of 1.6V to 5.5V so customers don’t need a level shifter/regulator in 5V systems. The RA0L1 MCUs also integrate multiple communications interfaces, analog functions, safety functions and security functionality to reduce customer BOM cost. A wide range of packaging options is also available, including a tiny 4mm x 4mm 24-pin QFN.
In addition, the new MCU’s high-precision (±1.0%) HOCO improves baud rate accuracy and enables designers to forego a standalone oscillator. Unlike other HOCOs in the industry, it maintains this precision in environments from -40°C to 125°C. This wide temperature range enables customers to simplify thermal design by avoiding costly and time-consuming “trimming,” even after the reflow process.
The new RA0L1 Group MCUs are supported by Renesas’ Flexible Software Package (FSP). The FSP enables faster application development by providing all the infrastructure software needed, including multiple RTOS, BSP, peripheral drivers, middleware, connectivity, networking, and security stacks as well as reference software to build complex AI, motor control and cloud solutions. It allows customers to integrate their own legacy code and choice of RTOS with FSP, thus providing full flexibility in application development. Using the FSP will ease migration to and from other RA family devices.
