Renesas is well known in the automotive industry with nearly all of their microcontroller families including a CAN bus and many hardiness options that make them ideal for the non-ideal electrical and physical environment of vehicles. However, they’ve been trying to expand their horizons to newer, emerging markets.
The other day, I was talking to a co-worker about the RL78/G14 demonstration kit I’d been working on while testing some items for my Next Big Idea. As we were chatting, he reminded me of the RL78 low-power demo, the YRPBRL78G13, which uses the RL78 but instead of focusing on how many different features it has, showed how it could use minimal power. As I thought about it, I realized that this chip was ideal for Internet of Things applications. Of course, I was not the first to think of this and 2 seconds later found via Google this high level overview by Renesas of the exact demo board I was working with: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqADf_LLhzU
When deciding which processor works best for IoT, sometimes the biggest, fastest option is the best. However, the majority of the time, IoT applications are more focused on connectivity, interfaces, and efficiency. And this is where the RL78 family shines. With a variety of different options, it is highly customizable to whatever the particular IoT product needs. But, importantly, these options are available while still coming in at less than 50 μA per megahertz. They have created a unique Snooze feature that, according to their tests, reduces power consumption by another 30%.
IoT is an emerging market and as such, ability to get to the market fast may mean the difference between a product being new and original versus being seen as the knock-off. The RL78 family was built from the bottom up to be as quickly and easily interchangeable as possible. While currently using the RL78/G14 demo kit, I am quite confident that an RL78/G13 will be better suited for the final version. With pin to pin compatibility between the RL78/G14 and RL78/G13, the software can be developed on the /G14 kit while the product hardware is designed by other engineers, reducing a bottleneck.
There is no singular solution for anything or else the microprocessor world would be a much less diverse place. However, for any IoT applications, it seems that the RL78 family is a great place to look, especially if you have previous experience with the architecture.