Japanese semiconductor vendors have mostly stayed away from the maker market, at least outside Japan, as most people would be hard-pressed to come up with a hobbyist development board powered by processor or micro-controller from Toshiba, Sony, Renesas or other Japanese companies, despite the three aforementioned names being in the top 20 semiconductors companies. I can only remember having written about Fujitsu F-Cue 96Boards, as well as Renesas GR-PEACH mbed board since I started this blog 7 years ago. Renesas seems to be the only company to have a real community behind with their “Gadget Renesas” pink-colored development boards, and the latest and seventh board is GR-LYCHEE powered by Renesas RZ/A1LU ARM Cortex-A9 processor, and equipped with a WiFi & Bluetooth module, and a camera. Renesas GR-LYCHEE board preliminary specifications: Micro-processor – Renesas RZ / A1LU (R7S721030VCFP 176-pin QFP) ARM Cortex-A9 Processor @ 384 MHz with 3MB on-chip SRAM Storage […]
Renesas SK-RZG1M Board Powered by R8A7743 Processor Gets Mainline Linux Support
Another board has gotten initial mainline Linux support recently, with Renesas SK-RZG1M starter kit board based on Renesas RZ/G1M dual core ARM Cortex A15 SoC with 2GB RAM, a SATA interface, HDMI, LVDS, AV Ethernet bridge, and more. Renesas SK-RZG1M starter kit board actually has the exact same features as Renesas R-Car M2 Porter board except for the processor: SoC – Renesas RZ/G1M (R8A7743) dual core ARM Cortex-A15 processor @ 1.5GHz with PowerVR SGX544MP2 3D GPU, Renesas 2D graphics processor System Memory – Dual channel 2GB DDR3 Storage – On-board 4 MB SPI, and 64 MB SPI, 1x SATA rev 3.1 connector, 1x SD card slot, and 1x micro SD card slot Video Output / Display I/F – HDMI (via ADV7511), and LVDS + touchscreen Analog Video In – ADV7180 video decoder with RCA jack, NTSC/PAL/SECAM autodetection Audio codec – AK4643EN with 3.5mm jacks for Line In and Line Out Connectivity […]
Renesas GR-PEACH mbed Board Features RZ/A1H Processor with 10MB On-chip Memory
Renesas RZ/A1 ARM Cortex A9 processors were unveiled in 2013, and one of the differentiating feature was the large amount of on-chip SRAM with up to 10MB for RZ/A1H model. The following year, Renesas’ RZ/A1 professional development kit, and some RZ/A1H modules were launched, and I’ve now just seen a tweet about Renesas GR-PEACH development board that is mbed compatible, feature Renesas RZ/A1H processor, and happens to be pink. There are actually two models based on the same PCB: GR-PEACH normal without header, and a “WiFi” connector, and GR-PEACH Full with female headers and an Ethernet port. Both basically share the same specifications: SoC – Renesas RZ/A1H ARM Cortex-A9 Core @ 400 MHz with 10MB on-chip RAM, NEON and FPU, and 128KB L2 cache Storage – 8MB FLASH + micro SD slot Connectivity – Normal: Optional BP3595 WiFi module; FULL: 1x 10/100M Ethernet(Microchip LAN8710A); Both: Xbee connector (unpopulated) USB – […]
Renesas R-Car M2 Porter is a Linux Development Board for Your Car
So far, I always assumed development boards specifically designed for automotive applications would only be available to companies in the car or truck business, but as I wrote about FOSDEM 2016 schedule yesterday, I found out that one of the talk with cover FOSS software stacks that are available for automotive, and usable on hobbyist boards such as Raspberry Pi 2 and Minnowboard Max, but also on Renesas R-Car M2 Porter board specifically designed for automotive infotainment applications. Renesas Port board specifications: SoC – Renesas R-Car M2 dual core ARM Cortex-A15 processor @ 1.5GHz with PowerVR SGX544MP2 GPU, Renesas 2D graphics processor, and Multimedia Engine SH4A @ 780 MHz System Memory – Dual channel 2GB DDR3 Storage – On-board 4 MB SPI, and 64 MB SPI, 1x SATA rev 3.1 connector, 1x SD card slot, and 1x micro SD card slot Video Output / Display I/F – HDMI and LVDS […]
Renesas R-Car H3 Deca-Core Processor and Driverless Car Roadmap
Renesas has recently unveiled R-Car H3 deca-core processor for automotive applications with four Cortex A57 cores, four Cortex A5 cores, and two Cortex-R7 “dual-lock step” cores for real-time processor, and has part the releases showed the expected roadmap for the implementation of driverless / autonomous cars. Let’s start with the processor (R8A77950) and SiP module (R8J77950) specifications: CPU cores – quad core ARM Cortex-A57, quad core ARM Cortex-A53, and dual lock-step ARM Cortex-R7 cores with respectively 48KB/32KB, 32KB/32KB, and 32KB/32KB L1 instructions/operand cache. GPU – IMG PowerVR Series6XT GX6650 External memory – LPDDR4-SDRAM up to 1600 MHz, data bus width: 32 bits x 4 ch (12.8GB/s x 4) Expansion bus – 2 ch PCI Express2.0 (1 lane) Video Out – 3x display output Input / camera – 8x video inputs Video codec module (H.265, H.264/AVC, MPEG-4, VC-1, etc.) IP conversion module 2x TS Interfaces Stream and Security Processor Video image […]
Renesas RZ/A1H Starter Kit and Emtrion DIMM-RZ System-on-Module Run Segger embOS RTOS or Linux with 10MB SRAM
Announced just about a year ago, Renesas RZ/A1 ARM Cortex A9 processor family can be used for human machine interface applications, and has the particularly to embed large amount of SRAM, especially the RZ/A1H series with 10 MB SRAM which allows the development of some applications without external RAM chip, lowering both board size and BoM cost. I’ve just come across a development kit dubbed “RZ/A1H Starter Kit”, and the just released Emtrion DIMM-RZ system-on-module both powered by Renesas RZ/A1H SoC. Renesas RZ/A1H Starter Kit+ (RSK) The development kit includes the mainboard, a 7″ TFT LCD (Optional), a detachable Colour LCD Board Pmod Compatible,a detachable AD Adjustment Shaft, Segger J-LINK Lite debugger, various connection cables, a power supply, a Quick Start Guide, and a DVD-ROM with documentation, ARM DS-5 IDE (with 32K code limit), KPIT GNU compiler for Cortex A9, Segger debugger drivers. and sample code. The mainboard has the […]
Renesas DevCon Extension Organizes Free One-Day Courses About IoT, Low Power, Sensors and More
I’ve just come across a YouTube video called Ultra-Low-Power Solutions for Wearable Technology and the ‘Internet of Things’ On Renesas channel. The video itself promotes Cymbet EnerChip Solid State Batteries and Kits, working together with Renesas MCUs, and the interesting part is that they’ll provide a free training session for the kit as part of Renesas Devcon Extension 2014. This is not a single event as you may think, but instead the company hosts one-day workshops in various cities in the US and Brazil covering various tracks all year long, as you can see in the simplified schedule below. RTOS & Middleware track is not available anymore, but you can still attend training sessions for Human Machine Interfaces, Low Power designs, the Internet of Things and Sensors. As an example, the following lectures are available for the Low Power track: Renesas Low-Power MCU Lineup (30 minutes) – Updated technology roadmap […]
Renesas RZ/A1 Cortex A9 Processors Feature Up to 10 MB On-chip RAM
Renesas Electronics has recently introduced the RZ/A1 group of ARM Cortex-A9 microprocessors (MPUs) for automotive, consumer and industrial applications requiring user interfaces with displays with a resolution up to 1280×768 (WXGA). The RZ/A1 series will come in three product groups: RZ/A1H, RZ/A1M and RZ/A1L with respectively 10MB, 5MB and 3MB on-chip RAM. These Renesas SoCs are an upgrade to SH7260 Series. Key Features (Included in A1H and A1M, but not always in A1L): Core – ARM Cortex A9 @ up to 400 MHz (with Jazelle and NEON) GPU – OpenVG-compliant Renesas graphics processor (2D graphics) Cache – 32-Kbyte L1 instruction cache, a 32-Kbyte L1 data cache, and a 128-Kbyte L2 cache. Built-in memory – Up to 10-Mbyte large-capacity RAM (128 Kbytes are shared by the data-retention RAM) for A1H, 5MB for A1M, and 3MB for A1L External memory Up to 66.67 MHz bus Direct connection to SRAM, byte select SRAM, […]