Renesas, a supplier of advanced semiconductor solutions, has introduced the RX23W – a 32-bit microcontroller (MCU) featuring Bluetooth 5.0 for IoT endpoint devices such as home appliances and healthcare equipment. By combining Bluetooth 5.0 with Renesas’ Trusted Secure IP on its popular high-performance RX MCU family, Renesas offers customers an optimized single-chip solution for system control and wireless communication, while also providing a more secure way to answer the Bluetooth security risks such as eavesdropping, tampering, and viruses.
While devices with Bluetooth 5.0 Low Energy are not new in the market, Renesas adds value for this ubiquitous wireless technology with a twist: a strong emphasis on security and privacy. The recent security concerns clearly show that the Bluetooth implementations are getting more complex as more core use cases are defined, and there is a strong need to address better, more secure connections. Renesas believes applications deploying Bluetooth 5.0 Low Energy capabilities will be complemented with Renesas’ strength in hardware security, all within one MCU that can handle application, communication, and security.
The new RX23W is based on Renesas’ RXv2 core (Note 1), which provides outstanding computational performance with improved FPU (Note 2) and DSP functions and operates at a maximum clock frequency of 54 MHz. The RX23W provides full Bluetooth 5.0 Low Energy support including long-range and mesh networking functions and achieves the industry’s lowest level reception mode peak power consumption at 3.0 mA. Furthermore, it integrates a rich set of peripheral functions that are indispensable for IoT equipment, including security, touch key, USB, and CAN functions. These functions allow the RX23W to implement both system control and Bluetooth wireless functions for IoT endpoint equipment such as home appliances, healthcare equipment, and sports & fitness equipment on a single chip. In addition, the RX23W's Bluetooth mesh functions make it optimal for industrial IoT equipment collecting sensor data within a factory or a building.
Key Features of the RX23W MCU:
- Fully functional support for Bluetooth 5.0 Low Energy and outstanding reception characteristics: The RX23W supports long-distance communication (long-range: 400 m), 2 Mbps (megabit per second) data throughput, and Bluetooth mesh networking, supporting the full functionality of Bluetooth 5.0 Low Energy. Furthermore, the RX23W achieves a 3.0 mA reception mode peak current – the industry's lowest level – and a reception sensitivity level of -105 dBm at 125 Kbps.
- A basic protocol stack package and all standard profiles: In addition to a Bluetooth 5.0 basic protocol stack package, Renesas provides API functions that conform to all standard profiles, including a Health Thermometer Profile (HTP), an Environment Sensing Profile (ESP), and an Automation I/O profile (AIOP). These allow users to start prototype development and evaluation quickly and can speed up the user's development process.
- A revolutionary development environment that allows simultaneous development of system control and communication control: Renesas provides a Smart Configurator, implemented in a GUI, that can generate all types of MCU peripheral function driver code and pin settings for the e2 Studio integrated development environment (IDE) to generate the Bluetooth driver code. Renesas also developed a QE for BLE that can generate programs for custom profiles and embed them in user application programs to support application program development. Renesas also developed a Bluetooth Trial Tool Suite that allows users to perform initial wireless characteristics evaluations and Bluetooth functional verification in a GUI. The RX23W target board includes antennas and has already acquired certification under Radio Law. The recommended reference price of this board will be US$55 per unit (excluding tax).
- Secure communications MCU for the IoT: The RX23W integrates Renesas’ Trusted Secure IP (TSIP) as part of its built-in hardware security engine. The TSIP driver uses strong encryption key management with hardware accelerators to securely boot customers’ IoT devices and protect them from security threats. Cryptographic Algorithm Validation Program (CVAP) certification is expected.
- Reduced Bill of Materials through integration: The RX23W includes a dedicated Bluetooth® high-precision low-speed on-chip oscillator, eliminating the need for external matching circuits and external capacitors. This reduces both BOM (bills of materials) costs and circuit board areas, resulting in lower IoT equipment manufacturing costs.
The RX23W includes the RXv2 core, which achieves the high performance of 4.33 Coremark/MHz. Coremark is a benchmark test that the EEMBC (Embedded Microprocessor Benchmark Consortium) has specialized for evaluating CPU cores. It is a set of programs written in the C language that perform operations such as data reads and writes, integer calculations, and control operations. The performance value per unit operating frequency is a score using the CC-RX V3 RX family C/C++ compiler. FPU (floating point unit) is a functional unit that is dedicated to performing floating-point calculations.
Pricing and Availability: The RX23W is available now in both 7mm x 7mm 56-pin QFN and 5.5mm x 5.5mm 85-pin GBA packages with 512 KB of on-chip flash memory. For example, the 56-pin QFN package with 512 KB on-chip flash memory will be priced at US$3.83 in 10,000-unit quantities.
Click here to learn more about the new Renesas RX23W.
