Single-chip microcontroller

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Renesas Technology America, Inc. today announced the SH7211F single-chip microcontroller (MCU) with on-chip flash memory, which features a fast SH-2A CPU core with good real-time control capability, an operating speed of 160MHz, and a processing capability of up to almost 320 MIPS.

The high-performance device - an addition to the 32-bit RISC (reduced instruction set computer) SuperH® family - uses proprietary flash memory and circuit technologies and also has a superscalar architecture that can simultaneously execute two instructions. It improves performance by a factor of 1.5 or more compared to previous Renesas MCUs with SH-2 CPU cores at the same frequency, or by a factor of about three when the 80MHz maximum operating frequency of SH-2 devices is considered.

To accommodate complex and sophisticated application programs, the chip has a large-capacity 512Kbyte flash memory. In general, the operating speed of flash memory is theoretically slower than that of the logic circuitry in the CPU core, and is difficult to increase. However, the SH7211F is built with proprietary Renesas flash memory technology and uses innovative circuit techniques for the flash-memory cache circuitry. These factors combine to allow the SH7211F to produce virtually the same performance as when single-cycle accesses are performed at 160 MHz. Also, because the SH-2A CPU core improves ROM code efficiency, program size can be reduced by about 25 percent compared with code written for chips that have the SH-2 core. (Upward instruction compatibility is maintained with the SH-2 core.)

The SuperH device provides a rich selection of peripheral functions, making it possible to implement functionally advanced systems while reducing the number of external parts and making end products smaller and lower in cost. Specifically, the MCU offers two multifunction timer units (MTU2 and MTU2S) with 3-phase pulse width modulation (PWM) output capability for controlling AC servos or two motors simultaneously, as well as an 8-channel 12-bit A/D converter and a 2-channel 8-bit D/A converter that are useful for many industrial applications. The device also has a variety of communication functions, including a 4-channel serial communication interface with 16-stage FIFO and an I2C bus interface. A bus state controller enables flash ROM, SRAM, SDRAM, burst ROM, multiplex I/O, and others to connect directly to the MCU's external data bus.