Prototyping board simplifies product development for IoT endpoint equipment

By Gina Roos, editor-in-chief

Renesas Electronics Corp. rolled out two new boards — the RL78/G14 Fast Prototyping Board  and RL78/G1D BLE Module Expansion Board — to enable fast product development for IoT endpoint equipment. The low-cost prototyping board, based on the RL78/G14 microcontroller (MCU), now comes with an on-board emulator, while the expansion board enables developers to quickly add Bluetooth Low Energy (LE) wireless communications.¹

Renesas said that the RL78/G14 is the most powerful MCU in the RL78 Family, achieving a numerical processing performance of 51.2 DMIPS at 32 MHz. It includes up to 512 KB of flash memory and up to 48 KB of RAM and provides functions such as timers and 8-bit D/A converters. It also claims the industry’s lowest levels of current drain, 66 µA/MHZ, when the CPU is operating at 240 nA in standby mode (STOP).²

By using the RL78/G14 MCU with its wide range of functionality, the prototyping board is well suited for motor control in portable equipment and IoT sensors, as well as a wide range of IoT endpoint equipment, such as home appliances, industrial equipment, building automation, and health-care equipment.

One of the key features of the new prototyping board is the on-board emulator circuit. Previously, the RL78/G14 starter kit and target boards required an external emulator, and there were additional costs associated with the high-performance versions. The new prototyping board has an on-board emulator circuit with the same functions as the E2 Emulator (E2 Lite), which eliminates the need to purchase additional debugging tools. The new board provides access to all of the RL78/G14 signal pins and includes Arduino and Pmod interfaces to allow for easy functional expansion.

In addition, designers can prototype for IoT sensor devices using wireless communication based on LoRa with extended period battery drive¹ by combining a Semtech SX1261 or SX1262 LoRa transceiver with the prototyping board.

Renesas also provides circuit diagrams, parts lists, user manuals, sample codes, and application notes. Both boards are available now with recommended reference prices of $20 per unit for the RL78/G14 Fast Prototyping Board and $25 per unit for the RL78/G1D BLE Module Expansion Board.

Notes:
¹ Bluetooth and LoRa should be used in accordance with the laws governing electromagnetic radiation in the country of use.

² The STOP mode is set by executing the STOP instruction, and it can be set only when the CPU clock before the setting was the high-speed on-chip oscillator clock, X1 clock, or external main system clock.