Renesas introduces RE family for SOTB energy harvesting portfolio

Renesas has introduced its RE family, which encompasses the company’s current and future lineup of energy harvesting embedded controllers.

The RE family is based on a proprietary SOTB (silicon on thin buried oxide) process technology. The firm claims it dramatically reduces power consumption in both the active and standby states, eliminating the need for battery replacement or recharging.

Following the mass production of the RE01 group (formerly known as the R7F0E embedded controllers), the first of the RE family, the RE01 group evaluation kit has been launched, which allows users working with those devices to jump-start system evaluations for energy harvesting applications.

The kit includes an evaluation board which features an RE01 embedded controller, an interface for the energy harvesting device and a rechargeable battery interface. It also includes an Arduino-compatible interface for expansion and evaluation of sensor boards and a Pmod connector to expand and evaluate wireless functionality.

In addition, there is a mip LCD expansion board to help users evaluate display functions faster. The kit also contains sample code and application notes as references for power management design and driver software that supports CMSIS, Arm’s Cortex microcontroller software interface standard.

Sample code for low power A/D converters, digital filter and FFT (fast Fourier transform) routines, 2D graphics mip LCD displays, and secure boot and secure firmware update functions for improved security are also available.

These features make it possible to adopt energy harvesting based on RE01 devices at the system level and will assist the development of equipment that does not require battery maintenance.

IAR embedded workbench for Arm which can use the IAR C/C++ compiler, and e2 studio which can use the free GNU compiler are available as the developmental environment.

“Energy harvesting eliminates the labor and costs associated with battery maintenance and is a key solution contributing to environmental conservation,” said Hiroto Nitta, senior vice president, head of SoC business, IoT and infrastructure business unit at Renesas. “I am extremely pleased that Renesas’ technology innovation with SOTB has enabled these alternative energy solutions.”