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New 16-bit MCUs from Renesas for automotive body control electronics

Date: 12/09/2013
Renesas Electronics has launched new 16-bit MCU family called RL78/F13 and RL78/F14 for automotive body control systems such as power window and side mirror control, and also for automotive motor control systems such as electric water pumps and cooling fans. This family consists of a total of 91 products including 60 products in the RL78/F13 Group and 31 products in the FL78/F14 Group. The RL78/F13 MCUs are designed for use in an extensive range of automotive applications. The RL78/F14 MCUs support the body control system applications, such as BCM (body control module) and HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) control that require especially large memory capacities.

Key features of the RL78/F13 and RL78/F14 MCUs:
RL78/F13 MCUs have internal flash memory sizes from 16- to 128-kilobytes (KB) and packages from 20- to 80-pins, and the RL78/F14 MCUs have internal flash memory with capacities from 48- to 256 KB, packages from 30- to 100-pins, and RAM with capacities up to 20 KB.

RL78/F13 and RL78/F14 MCUs adopt the respective high-functionality MCU peripheral functions of the existing Renesas' 78K0R and R8C CPU cores. This allows system manufacturers to make effective use of existing assets and also achieve improved performance by adding multiply-and-accumulate instructions to the CPU core.

Support for high-temperature operation up to 150°C allow reduction of the overall unit size.

Renesas has developed a new QFN (Quad Flat No-leads) package to support design of compact ECUs. When compared to Renesas' existing 32-pin SSOP (Shrink Small Outline Package), the new QFN package can reduce mounting areas by approximately 69 percent, says Renesas.

RL78/F13 and RL78/F14 MCUs can operate in ambient temperatures of up to 150°C, so that they can be directly mounted in actuators resulting in saving of further space.

Standby mode current consumption of the RL78/F13 and RL78/F14 MCUs are reduced by 50 percent from the 1 µA (microampere) of Renesas' existing 78K0R/Fx3 MCUs to 500 nA (nanoampere). The new MCUs also contribute to lower system power consumption with a function that allows A/D conversions to be performed without activating the CPU.

The RL78/F13 and RL78/F14 MCUs incorporate safety functions including: a test function that verifies that the A/D converter is operating correctly by converting a reference voltage or the power supply voltage and comparing the result to a standard value; a function that prevents software runaway by detecting stack overflow with an interrupt; and a function that detects if an external clock oscillator has stopped by comparing it to an internal oscillator.
Integrate key peripheral functions including automotive networks such as CAN (Controller Area Network) and LIN (Local Interconnect Network).

Sample of Renesas Electronics' new RL78/F13 and RL78/F14 MCUs are expected in October 2013. Mass production is scheduled to begin in September 2014
Indicative price as per Renesas: RL78/F14 MCU with 128 KB of flash memory equipped on a package with 48 pins is priced at US$6.0 per unit in sample quantities.