RX based mcus to appear next year

In a move to protect its position as the world’s leading supplier of microcontrollers, Renesas has announced plans for mcus based on itsrecently developed RX architecture. Two families are planned: the RX600 range of 32bit devices will target high speed, high performance applications, whilst the 16bit RX200 range will cater for high speed, low power applications. Renesas says the RX family will take advantage of the growth in demand for 32bit applications by providing a scalable cisc architecture The RX CPU core can run at up to 200MHz. It has a Harvard architecture with a five stage pipeline and can perform program reads and data writes in parallel. Renesas says this provides 1.25MIPS/MHz, equating to 250MIPs at ful speed. The cpu’s instruction set is optimised, resulting in a 30% increase in code efficiency compared to current Renesas products. RX600 devices will be available in the middle of 2009, whilst RX200 parts will follow a year later. Meanwhile, it’s five years since Hitachi Semiconductor and some of Mitsubishi’s operations were combined to form Renesas, immediately creating the world’s third largest semiconductor company. One of the visions which the new company held was the need for ubiquitous computing, in which computers would be smaller and less visible. To that end, it concentrated on three elements: process and packaging technology; process and design integration; and hardware and software integration. Matthew Trowbridge, ceo of Renesas Technology Europe, pictured, said: “Supporting this, we are continuing to spend around 15% of sales revenues on R&D. We’ve also invested in process technology, SoC platforms, memory, wireless and security. Although we are spending less on capital equipment, we’re making more effective use of our resources.” And it’s the latter point which suggests that Renesas might be considering moving more towards a ‘fab lite’ approach. But Trowbridge rejected that. “We intend to retain manufacturing, developing our own processes and having a place to make our products.” However, he admitted that some 20% of Renesas’s production is already outsourced and that process technology is ‘aligned so Renesas can use outsourcing’. “Foundries can be more appropriate,” Trowbridge continued, “but we haven’t given up on process development or manufacturing.” The company has maintained its status as the number 1 global microcontroller supplier since the merger and this business contributes 35% of revenues.