Renesas Electronics announces the production of the first microcontroller (MCU) based on its 22nm process technology. It offers best performance with lower power consumption due to the reduced core voltage. The advanced process technology allows the integration of a variety of features such as RF functions. The new process node requires a smaller chip area with higher integration of peripheral functions and memories.
The first chip manufactured in 22 nm is an extension of the Renesas RA microcontroller family based on the 32-bit Arm Cortex-M. The new wireless MCU unit supports Bluetooth 5.3 Low Energy (LE) with integrated Software-Defined Radio (SDR) as a future-proof solution for long-life products. Once implemented, the devices can be extended with application software or Bluetooth functions. Manufacturers of end products can utilize the full functionality of earlier versions of the Bluetooth LE specification. When developing directional sensing applications that utilize Bluetooth 5.1 AoA (Angle of Arrival)/AoD (Angle of Departure) functions, or when adding low-power stereo audio to products using isochronous Bluetooth 5.2 channels, developers only need one device that supports all of these functions.Renesas will combine the new MCUs with numerous compatible devices from its portfolio of so-called Winning Combinations. Samples are now available for selected customers. The market launch is planned for Q4 2023. Renesas supplies more than 3.5 billion MCU units annually. About 50% are used in the automotive industry, the rest in industrial and Internet-of-Things applications, data centers and communication infrastructures.
