Renesas Electronics America, a wholly owned subsidiary of Renesas Electronics, has come up with M16C/6S1 Group of 16-bit microcontrollers (MCUs) with built-in power line communication (PLC) functions.
The new 16-bit MCUs enable data transfer speeds in the low-frequency band (10 kilohertz [kHz] to 450 kHz).
The M16C/6S1 MCUs are suitable for applications such as smart meters, lighting fixtures, and electric household appliances equipped with data communication capabilities.
Renesas Electronics already mass produces the M16C/6S Group of MCUs that combines a power line communication (PLC) modem and an MCU on a single chip.
Now the new M16C/6S1 Group provides faster communication speeds and on-chip implementation of functionality that previously required connection of an external device, allowing still further reduction of the overall system size.
The MCUs integrate a newly developed IT900 (DCSK-Turbo) spread spectrum modulation modem core from Yitran Communications.
The MCUs also incorporate as PLC modem cores, both the IT700, a conventional differential code shift keying (DCSK) core, and the IT900, which employs a newer system, thereby ensuring communication compatibility with existing M16C/6S MCUs.
They also incorporate up to 256 kilobytes (KB) of built-in flash memory, making it possible to accommodate the addition of application programs for handling larger networks (including AMI support).
There is also 8 KB of on-chip data flash (Note 4) for storing data, eliminating the need to connect external EEPROM.
The RAM capacity has been expanded to approximately 1.3 times that of comparable earlier Renesas Electronics products.
