32bit MCU and Bluetooth 5.0 for 35µA/MHz

RE01B is a 32bit Arm Cortex-M0+ microcontroller made on the company’s ‘SOTB’ silicon on thin buried oxide process.

Current consumption can be as low as 35µA/MHz during operation, and 600nA during stand-by (core 500nA + Bluetooth 100nA). Maximum operating frequency is 64MHz.

“Managing battery maintenance and replacement is one crucial hurdle ahead of the widespread adoption of ultra-low-power IoT devices that are expected to run for long periods with limited or no maintenance,” said Renesas v-p Shigeki Kato. “The new Bluetooth-capable RE MCU will remove the needs for battery maintenance.”

Bluetooth 5.0 Long Range is supported for up to 400m and 2Mbit/s operation. Peak current is 3mA dring reception (1Mbit/s)and 4.3mA for transmission (0dBm 1Mbps).

Alongside the processor is 1.5Mbyte of flash and 256kbyte of SRAM. Over-the-air firmware update is possible, and flash can be programmed at ~0.6mA. Trusted secure IP is included.

Amongst peripherals there is a 14bit ADC (~4µA) and an energy harvesting control circuit with start-up capacitor charging and secondary battery protection to allow direct connection to a harvester and storage.

Operation is across 1.62 to 3.6V and the package is an 8 x 8mm 64pin QFN.

Development tools include one which generates programs for custom Bluetooth profiles that can be integrated into user application programs, and a Bluetooth test suite which provides GUI-based wireless characteristics evaluations and Bluetooth functionality verification.

A Bluetooth 5.0 protocol stack is available, as are APIs conforming to various standard protocols such as heart rate (HRP), environment sensing (ESP), and automation I/O (AIOP).

Reference designs are in the pipeline for wearable devices and GNSS (sat nav) based tracking.

Tessera technology is making an evaluation kit (EB-RE01B).