G-Shock uses Renesas RE microcontroller for heart rate and GPS
At the end of last month Casio Computer unveiled its latest smartwatch. The G-Shock watch GBD-H1000 has a heart rate monitor and GPS functionality and uses the Renesas low power RE Family as its main controller.
The GBD-H1000 has been added to Casio’s line of shock-resistant watches. It has an optical sensor that measures heart rate by detecting changes in the blood flow under the skin and a triple sensor that measures compass bearing, barometric pressure/altitude and temperature. An acceleration sensor measures step count and distance travelled and a GPS functionality acquires location information.
The Renesas low power RE Family controller implements high-load internal watch processing requires only solar power for charging during daily use.
The RE Family controller employed in the new watch uses Renesas’ silicon on insulator based SOTB process technology to achieve what are claimed to be industry-leading low power consumption levels in both operating and sleep modes.
Casio’s Yuichi Masuda, said: “We selected Renesas’ SOTB technology for its superior results in terms of both performance and power efficiency. I am deeply grateful for the tremendous contribution of the Renesas RE Family to the functional advances of the GBD-H1000”.
SOTB process is proprietary transistor technology from Renesas. It can realise extreme reduction of both active and standby current, which are normally part of a trade off relationship. SOTB has the low leakage benefits of larger geometry node size, with the high-performance and low active current benefits of smaller silicon geometries and shown here. This makes SOTB-based products well suited for applications requiring long battery life, or energy harvesting.
Renesas Electronics develops and manufactures microcontrollers, analogue, power, and SoC products, for use in a broad range of automotive, industrial, home electronics, office automation, and information communication technology applications.
