Renesas Electronics has introduced the RL78/G21, a 16-bit microcontroller designed for system control in smart appliances including air conditioners, refrigerators, washing machines and microwave ovens. The company says the new chip is available from October 28.
A microcontroller is the compact computer inside an appliance that manages sensors, motors, displays and other everyday functions. Improvements in power use and component integration can therefore affect both electricity demand and the cost of building the final product.
What Renesas is claiming
Renesas lists an operating current of 34 microamps per megahertz for the RL78/G21, which it says is nearly half the level of its older RL78/G13 products. The company also says an integrated oscillator and 4KB of data flash can remove the need for some external components.
Those figures come from the manufacturer and should be assessed in independent testing and in finished appliance designs. Real-world energy use depends on the complete system, its software and how often different functions are active.
Security and reliability
The chip includes flash-read protection, device identifiers and other measures intended to make copying or unauthorised access more difficult. Renesas also gives it a plus-or-minus 4 kV Human Body Model electrostatic-discharge rating, a laboratory measure used to evaluate resistance to static-electricity events during manufacturing and use.
The RL78/G21 is designed to be pin- and function-compatible with selected earlier RL78 parts. That could let manufacturers update existing control boards without redesigning every part of the system, although individual products will still require engineering validation.
A parallel touch-control update
Renesas also expanded its RL78/G23 range with versions offering more capacitive-touch channels. The company positions the G21 for efficient system control and the G23 for products that combine control duties with touch-based interfaces.
