Renesas — RA8E1 and RA8E2 Microcontrollers

Renesas has launched the value-oriented RA8E1 and RA8E2 microcontrollers, extending the RA8 series, the industry’s first MCUs to implement the high-performance Arm® Cortex®-M85 processor core.  

The new RA8E1 and RA8E2 MCUs offer the high performance of other RA8 MCUs, illustrated by the 6.39 CoreMark index/MHz score, but with a streamlined feature set to reduce cost and overhead. The new MCUs are ideal for high-volume applications such as industrial and home automation, office equipment, healthcare, and consumer products. 

The RA8E1 and RA8E2 MCUs deploy Arm Helium™ technology, the M-Profile Vector Extension feature which boosts performance by as much as four times in digital signal processing and machine learning functions compared to MCUs based on the Cortex-M7 processor. This performance uplift enables applications in the fast-growing field of artificial intelligence (AI), where high performance enables lower latency.  

The RA8E1 Cortex-M85 core operates at a maximum frequency of 360 MHz, while the RA8E2 maximum is 480 MHz, and it is supported by a larger SRAM capacity.  

Like the other RA8 series MCUs, the RA8E1 and RA8E2  integrate low-power features to improve power efficiency while maintaining strong performance. A combination of low-power modes, independent power domains, a low operating-voltage range, fast wake-up time and low typical active and standby currents leads to low system power consumption, and eases compliance with the requirements of energy efficiency standards and regulations.  

All RA8 series MCUs are supported by the Renesas Flexible Software Package (FSP). The FSP enables faster application development by providing all the infrastructure software needed, including multiple real-time operating systems (RTOSs), board support packages, peripheral drivers, middleware, connectivity, networking, and Arm TrustZone support, as well as reference software to build complex AI, human-machine interface, motor control and cloud solutions.  

The FSP allows customers to integrate their own legacy code and choice of RTOS. Using the FSP eases migration of existing designs to the new RA8E1 or RA8E2 from within the RA8 series or from RA6 MCUs. 

Developer productivity can also be enhanced by taking advantage of the Renesas Ready Partner Network, an extensive and curated network of trusted technology partners. They provide commercial-grade building blocks which work out-of-the-box with Renesas products.  

Ready-made system software for RA Family MCUs is available via the RA Partner ecosystem. RA Ready solutions accelerate time-to-market by providing a variety of IoT capabilities in domains including security, connectivity, AI, machine learning, and the human-machine interface.