Renesas Launches New General-Purpose 64-Bit RZ/G2L Group of MPUs with Latest Arm Cortex-A55 for Improved AI Processing

January 19, 2021 - RENESAS Electronics Corporation, a premier supplier of advanced semiconductor solutions, announced the expansion of its RZ/G2 general-purpose 64-bit microprocessors (MPUs), delivering improved AI processing for a wide range of applications. The expanded product lineup includes three new entry-level MPU models built around the latest Arm^® Cortex^®-A55 core: The RZ/G2L, RZ/G2LC, and RZ/G2UL. Together with the existing mid- to high-end RZ/G2E, RZ/G2N, RZ/G2M, and RZ/G2H MPUs, the total of seven RZ/G2 MPUs provide scalability from entry-level to high-end design.

The new RZ/G2L MPUs are built around the Cortex-A55 CPU core, which delivers approximately 20 percent improved processing performance compared with the previous Cortex-A53 core and provides approximately six times faster in essential processing for AI applications. In addition, the new MPUs integrate camera input interfaces, a 3D graphics engine, and a video codec, providing cost-efficient support for sophisticated functionality for human-machine interface (HMI) applications, such as multimedia processing, GUI rendering, and AI image processing. The MPUs also feature the Cortex-M33 core, which makes it possible to perform real-time processing for tasks such as sensor data collection without the need for external microcontrollers (MCUs), reducing the overall system cost.

“The use of 64-bit MPUs for processing AI and graphical HMIs have become widespread, increasing the demand for easy to use, high-performance MPUs,” said Hiroto Nitta, Senior Vice President and Head of SoC Business, IoT and Infrastructure Business Unit at Renesas. “Through the introduction of new entry-level products in RZ/G2, Renesas is accelerating adoption of the Linux OS on high-performance MPUs and can help bring innovation that will deliver better performance and enhanced functionality in HMI devices, while driving down the overall cost.”

“With AI transforming our daily lives, greater on-device compute capabilities are required to provide real-time insights for billions of IoT endpoints,” said Dipti Vachani, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Automotive and IoT Business at Arm. “By incorporating Arm technology in its latest 64-bit MPUs, Renesas is accelerating the adoption of endpoint AI by enabling higher-performance IoT devices capable of processing more intelligence on the device.”

As part of the RZ/G Series, the new entry-level RZ/G2L Group features error checking and correction (ECC) protection for both on-chip memory and external DDR memory. In addition, a Verified Linux Package (VLP) featuring a Civil Infrastructure Platform (CIP) Linux, an industrial-grade Linux offering guaranteed support and security maintenance for more than 10 years, is available. This makes it possible to dramatically reduce future maintenance costs. Additionally, support for security functions means that customers can also confidently adopt the RZ/G2L Group MPUs for industrial applications requiring high reliability and extended service life, making it possible to bring their products to market more quickly.

For cases where more sophisticated AI functionality may be required, Renesas plans to enhance the functions and performance of the RZ/G2L MPUs with its exclusive AI accelerator, the DRP-AI. Renesas aims to include continued pin compatibility and better software reusability in order to reduce the development burden on customers as they add new product versions to their lineups in the future.

Key features of the RZ/G2L Group:

· Cortex-A55 and Cortex-M33 64-bit CPU cores

   ○ RZ/G2L and RZ/G2LC: Cortex-A55 (1.2 GHz) dual- or single-core and Cortex-M33

   ○ RZ/G2UL: Cortex-A55 (1.0 GHz) single-core and Cortex-M33 (optional)

· 3D graphics functions (Arm Mali™-G31 GPU) (RZ/G2L and RZ/G2LC)

· Video codec (H.264) (RZ/G2L)

· CAN interface with support for faster CAN FD protocol (RZ/G2L, RZ/G2LC, and RZ/G2UL)

· Gigabit Ethernet (2 channels on RZ/G2L and RZ/G2UL, 1 channel on RZ/G2LC)

· Memory error checking and correction (ECC) (RZ/G2L, RZ/G2LC, and RZ/G2UL)

· Support for DDR4 and DDR3L external memory interfaces (RZ/G2L, RZ/G2LC, and RZ/G2UL)

· 13 mm square (RZ/G2LC, RZ/G2UL), 15 mm square (RZ/G2L), and 21 mm square (RZ/G2L) BGA packages

As part of a series of comprehensive solutions for assisting rapid development called “Winning Combinations,” Renesas also offers power supply circuit reference designs that can be flexibly applied to customers’ specific use cases.