Renesas and SiliconLabs steal the show
31
Oct
2021
Renesas is the darling of this month with a host of new groups both in the Cortex-M and the RX realms edging their bets between the ubiquitous Cortex-M and the large installed base of Renesas-born cores. Nuvoton continued to spin new Cortex-M23 MCUs, this time focused on LED applications. And while ST is starting to phase out its STM8Ax 8-bit families focused on automotive applications, SiliconLabs is pushing more analog integration into its own flavor of the 8051 with the 5V EFM8BB5. Finally, credits to SiliconLabs for pushing ever more the integration of RF into its single chip EFR32FG23 Flex Gecko, a sub-GHz single die, multi-core solution IoT wireless MCU for for smart home, security, lighting, building automation, and metering.
Dialog got acquired by Renesas in February, no change to the portfolio.
No change yet, before the merge storm with Cypress. We are seeing more links between the 2 websites, and we assume this will last a little while.
DSPIC33CH256MP206/8 got their PTVAO (Automotive-grade) variant, so did the PIC16LF18313/23.
No change.
Nuvoton unveiled the Cortex-M23-based NUC1262 series with LED Light Strip Interface (LLSI) and USB2.0 full-speed device using built-in 48 MHz oscillator to support the communication with PC and Mobile accessories. It runs up to 72 MHz and features 128 Kbytes of Flash, 20 Kbytes of SRAM, 2.5-5.5V voltage, and -40°C to 105°C temperature. 3 parts are available now.
The NUC1262 series has 10 channels of LED LLSI, up to 24 channels of high-speed PWM with clock frequency up to 72 MHz for precision control, up to 9 channels 50 mA high sink current pins that can drive high-brightness LEDs.
The NUC1262 series targets industrial control, lighting control, keyboard/mouse, and home appliances related applications.
Supported packages include QFN48 (7 mm x 7 mm), LQFP48 (7 mm x 7 mm), and LQFP64 (7 mm x 7 mm), pin-compatible to other Nuvoton series.
No major changes.
Renesas has a fireworks of new products this month with no less than 3 new groups in the RA family and 2 in the RX:
The RA2E2 Group is RA Family’s entry line based on a 48MHz Cortex-M23 core, package options of 20-pin and 24-pin QFN and 16-pin wafer-level CSP package. 27 parts were released.
The Renesas RA4E1 group uses a 40nm, 100MHz Cortex-M33 core with TrustZone. The RA4E1 targets entry IoT applications, 4 parts were released.
And finally, the RA6E1 group pushed the Cortex-M33 to 200MHz on the same 40nm process and adds Ethernet, 6 parts were released.
The RX140 group based on a 48MHz RXv2 core with 56μA/MHz builds on the RX130. The latest capacitive touch sensor is equipped with third-generation touch IP supports a wider range of applications, including environments where noise or wet surroundings would affect accuracy. Peripheral functions have also been expanded, including CAN, an AES encryption accelerator and a true random number generator (TRNG). 144 parts were released.
The RX671 group based on a 120MHz RXv3 embeds HMI functions to enable contactless operation by proximity switches and voice recognition, making it possible to realize hygienic HMI suitable for the new normal. The devices include flash sizes from 1 to 2MB, 48-pin to 176-pin packages, capacitive touch sensing unit, serial sound interface, SD host interface, USB 2.0 full speed, CAN 2ch, and QSPI supporting XIP mode, Encryption engine (including AES, RSA, ECC, SHA), 2.7V to 3.6V single supply operation with -40°C to 85°C or -40°C to 105° operating temperatures. 72 parts were released.
SiiconLabs unveiled the EFM8BB5, part of the 5 Volt Busy Bee family, it is a general-purpose line of 8-bit 8051-based MCUs running at 50MHz. These devices integrate system, analog, and communication peripherals to cut down on external components, which reduces overall BOM cost. 24 parts were introduced.
SiliconLabs also released 16 parts in the EFR32FG23 Flex Gecko family, a sub-GHz single die, multi-core solution IoT wireless MCU for for smart home, security, lighting, building automation, and metering. It is based on a 78 MHz Cortex-M33 with up to 512/64 kB of flash program/RAM memory. TX power can go up to +20 dBm. It supports proprietary, CONNECT , Wi-SUN, Sidewalk, and WM-BUS wireless protocols.
Cypress/Infineon introduced a few new variants, namely the PSoC6144/6244 with 24 parts. These are part of the CY8C61x4 product line, based on the PSoC 6 MCU platform. It is a dual Cortex-M4 and Cortex-M0+ cores (although the M0+ is reserved for system functions, and is not available for applications). The Cortex-M4 runs up to 150-MHz with 256-KB application flash and 32-KB supervisory flash (SFlash); read-while-write (RWW) support, 2x 8-KB flash caches, one for each CPU and 128-KB SRAM with programmable power control and retention granularity.
ST is NRNDing all of its STM8AL and STM8AF parts, 215 in all. In the STM32 family, 20 new variants appeared, mostly in the STM32U575 group.
TI only had a few minor variants this month.
Nuvoton on fire!
16
Sep
2021
Nuvoton has been the ruler this time with no less than a new Cortex-M7 family, a slew of Cortex-M23 and more Cortex-M0 based parts. NXP is pushing the “low” side of the i.MNXRT with a 200MHz Cortex-M33 but with an additional DSP and GPU, it will be enough to power nice user interfaces. Microchp has revamped its parametric search and in the process made 400+ parts orphans. Please contact us to get the list ;)
Dialog got acquired by Renesas in February, no change to the portfolio.
No change yet, before the merge storm with Cypress. We are seeing more links between the 2 websites, and we assume this will last a little while.
Microchip has made some changes to their web site and in the process has lost a few hundred parts that are now orphans, i.e. pages are found through the search bar, but do not appear in the parametrics search. An example? ATSAME51G19, found here but not in the parametric search.
Unless we have missed it? Don’t hesitate to contact us if we did.
For some reason the nRF51822 page is now orphan, will it dissapear from the Nordic site?
Contact us if we have missed it.
Nuvoton is doubling down on the Cortex-M23 and more… The Cortex-M23 M254/M256/M258 series comes with COM/SEG LCD display driver and capacitive touch key functions, an USB 2.0 FS device, runs up to 48 MHz and features up to 256/32 kB Flash/RAM with an operating voltage of 1.75V ~ 5.5V and -40 to +105C operating temperature.
Supported packages include LQFP44, LQFP64, LQFP80 and LQFP128, pin-compatible with the M251/M252, M031 and M480 series.
The Cortex-M7 based KM1M7 runs at 160MHz to support motor control / digital power supply control.
Finally, the Cortex-M0-based M030G/M031G series includes h 32-bit hardware multiplier/divider and runs up to 48/72 MHz with 64 Kbytes Flash, 4 Kbytes and 8 Kbytes SRAM, 2.7V ~ 3.6V operating voltage, 5V I/O tolerant, and -40°C to +105°C operating temperature.
Designed for Optical Transceiver Module applications, both of the M030G and the M031G series have a built-in temperature sensor with ±2°C deviation from -40°C to 105°C and 2 sets of strong I2C with 1MHz slave mode and non-stretch mode. Furthermore, the M031G series, which supports Pilot Tone Modulation, is equipped with a Hardware Manchester Codec with CRC to encode and decode low-frequency dither signal and 1 set of DAC with “Auto Data Generation” function to generate the smooth sine waveform up to 500KHz for the output of Pilot Tone Modulation.
In order to fit the small form factor requirement of the optical module, the M030G and M031G series provide the QFN 24-pin (3×3 mm) and QFN 33-pin (4×4 mm) small form factor package with pin-compatible across these 2 series to make the system design and change parts easily.
NXP added more options at the lower end of the spectrum to i.MXRT with the single core RT500 (Cortex-M33 200 MHz + Tensilica Fusion DSP 200MHz + 2D GPU). Features include:
- Flashless, with Quad and Octo SPI interfaces and on the fly decryption
- Up to 5MB of SRAM
- Advanced security, including secure boot and crypto engines
- USB HS, eMMC
- 2D GPU
- MIPI® DSI
Renesas dropped the HWQFN package for the RX110, and RX111 while adding new variants in the RX23E, RX66 and RX72 groups.
The SiM3x has been retired as it is NRND on the SiLabs site.
Cypress/Infineon released 19 new parts, mostly variants of existing parts.
ST had 33 new parts, again mostly variants, with higher temperatures for the STM32G051
TI only had a few minor variants this month.
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