Renesas Electronics Introduces 32-Bit All Flash™ Microcontrollers with the World's Highest Performance Among the Industry's 32-Bit Microcontrollers with Embedded Flash Memory

TOKYO, September 7, 2010 — Renesas Electronics Corporation (TSE: 6723), a premier supplier of advanced semiconductor solutions, today announced the availability of two new 32-bit All Flash™ microcontrollers (MCUs), the µPD70F3515 and the µPD70F3515, with processing performance of 1024 Dhrystone MIPS (million instructions per second, Note 1) at a clock speed of 200 megahertz (MHz), the world's highest among existing 32-bit dual-core MCUs with embedded flash memory. The new MCUs have two built-in CPU cores, 64 kilobytes (KB) of random access memory (RAM) available for each core and two megabytes (MB) of flash memory and an additional 64KB system RAM are available in a 304-pin fine pitch ball grid array (FBGA) package. Renesas Electronics' new higher-performance, single-chip MCUs are ideal for factory automation (FA) systems, printers, home information appliances and household equipment, and, share the following features: (1) Integration of two Renesas Electronics' V850E2M 32-bit CPU cores; (2) Up to 2 MB of flash memory; (3) Expanded peripheral functions including USB, CAN and Ethernet interfaces as well as an increased number of channels for conventional peripherals such as timers and serial interfaces.

In addition to these two new MCUs from Renesas Electronics, two MCUs with up to 1MB flash memory and one built-in V850E2M core are also available (part numbers µPD70F3510 and µPD70F3512).

Recently, manufacturing systems increasingly have become highly-precise, faster and more complex to boost the manufacturing capacity of the plants, thereby requiring more complex MCUs integrated in FA systems, such as motion drives, servo drives and inverters, to provide higher performance. In the meantime, it is also important to provide compact MCUs with less power consumption to meet the growing consumer demand for environmentally friendly products.

In addition to FA systems, home appliances including TVs and refrigerators with network connectivity, and home equipment including digital interphones and fire receivers require high-speed communication between the devices using wide-ranging interfaces such as CAN, USB and Ethernet.

To address these growing demands, Renesas Electronics developed the new MCUs with the following main features:

(1) Incorporates two 32-bit CPU cores with the world's highest performance

By enhancing the pipeline structure of the company's existing V850E2 CPU core, Renesas Electronics has strengthened the parallel processing capability required for demanding environments and successfully developed the V850E2M core with high processing performance of 2.56 Dhrystone MIPS per MHz per core, increased by 1.4 times from the company's previous V850E2 core. By using two V850E2M cores, system designers can employ the world's highest processing performance of 1024 DMIPS at a clock speed of 200 MHz while still maintaining low power consumption of 0.88 milliwatts (mW) per Dhrystone MIPS, which is 60 percent less compared to using only one core. In addition, the V850E2M CPU core extends its floating point units (FPUs) to facilitate greater accuracy and range in floating point numbers, making it suitable for information appliances that require high-speed data processing or complex algorithm calculations.

(2) Large capacity and high-speed flash memory

The new MCUs incorporate up to 2 MB of flash memory fabricated through a scaled-down, high-speed 90-nanometer (nm) process technology. In addition, the new MCUs include flash memory caches for each CPU core that are capable of single-cycle access at 200 MHz, contributing to improvement of the overall system speed

(3) Expanded peripheral functions

In addition to the inclusion of CAN, USB (Host and Function) and Ethernet interfaces the new MCUs offer an extensive lineup of peripheral functions, including a dramatically increased number of channels for the timers and serial interfaces. The rich lineup of peripheral functions makes it possible for system designers to reduce the number of off-chip components, save board space, and realize compact systems at a lower cost. Two external memory buses are also provided to facilitate the development process for ASICs and external memory devices, and these cores eliminate the delay of the bus access of the dual cores, contributing to higher performance.

(4) Extensive software development environment lineup

Renesas Electronics will provide system designers with optimal multicore development environments supporting asymmetric multiprocessing (AMP). The company also plans to have its existing development tools such as the Cube Suite™ emulator and an integrated development environment (IDE), as well as sample code for a wide range of interface drivers, such as USB and Ethernet, support multi core development.

In addition, Prism, a multi core software development analysis environment, which allows software engineers to easily assess and realize the full potential of multi core processors without the need to change the source code or run additional simulations, is available from CriticalBlue, a provider of embedded multi core software analysis tools.

More information about CriticalBlue's Prism can be found at
http://www.criticalblue.com/criticalblue_products/prism.shtml

System designers can choose either MCU with a single-core or dual-core; each MCU employing Renesas Electronics' state-of-the-art V850E2M CPU core with robust processing capability. Renesas Electronics believes these new MCUs will contribute to the development of competitive systems for the markets of FAs, industrial drives, printers, home information appliances and household equipment and intends to market the new MCUs aggressively.

More information can be found on the separate sheet for the specifications of the new MCUs.

Pricing and Availability

Samples of Renesas Electronics' new MCUs are available now, priced at US$35 per unit in sample quantities. Mass production is scheduled to begin by the fall of 2011 and is expected to reach a combined volume of 2,000,000 units per month by March 2012.
(Pricing and availability are subject to change without notice.)

(Note 1) Dhrystone: Dhrystone is a benchmarking program used to compare computing performance. The 1024 Dhrystone MIPS achieved by Renesas Electronics' new MCUs are based on the MCU Dhrystone benchmark version 2.1.

About Renesas Electronics Corporation

Renesas Electronics Corporation (TSE: 6723) delivers trusted embedded design innovation with complete semiconductor solutions that enable billions of connected, intelligent devices to enhance the way people work and live. A global leader in microcontrollers, analog, power and SoC products, Renesas provides comprehensive solutions for a broad range of automotive, industrial, infrastructure, and IoT applications that help shape a limitless future. Learn more at renesas.com. Follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

(Remarks)
CubeSuite is a trademark of Renesas Electronics Corp in Japan, China, and Germany. All Flash is a trademark or registered trademark of Renesas Electronics Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. SuperFlash is a registered trademark of Silicon Storage Technology, Inc. in the United States, Japan, and other countries. The product names and service names mentioned in this press release are all registered trademarks or trademarks belonging to respective companies.

The content in the press release, including, but not limited to, product prices and specifications, is based on the information as of the date indicated on the document, but may be subject to change without prior notice.