Low power MCUs feature advanced security for industrial IoT endpoint devices

Renesas Electronics Corporation today extended its high integration Renesas Synergy S5 microcontroller (MCU) series with the introduction of the entry-level S5D3 MCU Group. The four new S5D3 MCUs join the mid-range S5D5 and high-end S5D9 MCU Groups with similar S5 Series features — integrated 120 MHz Arm Cortex-M4 core and advanced security — as well as general-purpose features that simplify designing cost sensitive, low power Internet of Things (IoT) endpoint devices. The entry-level S5D3 MCUs target a broad range of industrial, building automation, and office equipment, as well as smart metering, and home appliances employing a capacitive touch human-machine interface (HMI).

The Renesas Synergy Software Package (SSP) supports the S5D3 MCUs with HAL drivers, application frameworks and real-time operating system. Embedded system designers can use either of the Renesas Synergy development environments–e² studio or IAR Embedded Workbench — to build and customize their designs. Based on a 40nm process, the S5D3 MCUs integrate a secure cryptographic engine (SCE7) with key protection that safeguards the MCU boot code and IoT endpoint device communication with a root of trust. This capability eliminates the need for external security functions and reduces BOM cost. The SCE7 features encryption hardware accelerators like RSA, DSA, AES, ECC, SHA and true random number generator (TRNG) to provide a secure system connection to the cloud. Each S5D3 MCU offers superior power consumption of 100 μA/MHz in active mode, ultra-low 1.3 μA in standby mode, and 900 nA for a V_BATT supply that keeps the integrated real-time clock running, making these devices ideal for applications that require low power and high performance.