Hard to believe that I’m more than four months into this blog series and I’ve barely touched on Synergy Microcontrollers (MCUs). Seems blasphemous. Why the wait?
Well, here’s my thinking. Renesas is already known for its prowess in manufacturing world-class MCUs. I decided to be consistent with Renesas’s strategy, which is to transform itself from a component supplier to a platform provider. That means shine the spotlight on all of the new innovations and competencies Renesas is developing first. Then link the new Renesas back to the heritage – MCUs. All the better to demonstrate how the new builds upon the legacy.
So let’s agree that the stage is now properly set. You've learned the value of a platform. You’ve discovered the many ways Renesas has optimized the power of its evolving MCU portfolio with integrated software, tools and kits, solutions, documentation and support. We've taken some deep dives together into Synergy Platform application frameworks, productized software, and the process of preparing, building and debugging Synergy Platform projects.
We now redirect our story to Renesas’s roots: MCUs.
Renesas launched the Synergy Platform last year with four series of MCUs that address the continuum from High Performance to High Integration to High Efficiency to Ultra-Low Power.
And what better Synergy MCU Series to start with than the first one Renesas released to the mass market early this year: the Synergy S7 Series. We’ll focus on the first MCU Group in that series, the S7G2.
The S7G2 MCU Group is the epitome of ultra high-performance, leveraging a 240 Mhz ARM® Cortex®-M4 CPU core that is well-suited for Human Machine Interface, power conversion, security surveillance, communication infrastructure, industrial automation, consumer electronics, programmable logic control (PLC), and data concentrator applications.
The Human Machine Interface strengths of the S7G2 Group made it the ideal MCU for the PE-HMI product example kit I discussed earlier this year.
As a designer, I greatly appreciate the combination of performance, connectivity and security features that the S7G2 Group offers. Some of the design options the S7G2 Group provides:
As is the case with every Synergy MCU, the compatibility of the Synergy MCU portfolio lets me increase or decrease the feature set across a product line. I can re-use significant portions of my development code, thus reducing cost, resource waste and, ultimately, time-to-market.
That’s it for today. Next time we’ll explore a different series of Synergy MCUs.
Live long and profit!
Professor_IoT
Hot Tip of the Week
Synergy Software Package (SSP) v1.1.0 is now available for download via the Synergy Gallery! SSP v1.1.0 adds support for the ultra-low power S124 group of Synergy MCUs, providing ThreadX RTOS, USBX Stack, HAL drivers and Application Framework for expediting application development for systems based on the Synergy S124. Several new modules have been added including: IPv6/IPv4 Networking with NetX Duo and BSD-compatible socket layer for NetX and NetX Duo; HAL drivers for Controller Area Network (CAN); Low Voltage Detection (LVD); Parallel Data Capture (PDC); GPT Input Capture; Serial Sound Interface (SSI); support for I2S peripheral for the Audio Playback framework; Networking Services and Board Support Package (BSP) for DK-S124