Renesas Reveals Low-power Ethernet Chips
The firm's new R-IN32M3 series includes support for multiple protocols required for industrial Ethernet communication including CC-Link IE and EtherCAT
Renesas Electronics Corporation has launched the R-IN32M3 series of industrial Ethernet communication chips with support for multiple communication protocols.
The firm has launched its latest products in response to the rapid adoption of industrial Ethernet communication technology.
One of the most distinctive features of the R-IN32M3 is the high-speed operation with the basic function of the real-time OS in hardware to implement high-speed real-time response and high-precision communication control for industrial Ethernet communication.
As the hardware in the new R-IN32M3 series covers heavy load operations for the CPU, the combination of the CPU and integrated real-time OS off load engine (HW-RTOS) results in ultra-high-speed real-time responsiveness five to ten times that of a conventional software real-time OS.
What's more, the fluctuation caused by inconsistencies in the operation time with conventional CPU processing is reduced substantially from one-fifth to one-tenth of the previous level. The new R-IN32M3 series include an integrated ARM Cortex-M3 CPU (100 MHz).
The new Ethernet controllers accept protocols for industrial Ethernet communication such as CC-Link IE and EtherCAT and will accept the control area network (CAN), which is heavily used in industries and generic interface such as universal asynchronous receiver transmitter (UART).
CC-Link IE is a high-speed field network that can deal with control and communication simultaneously based on Ethernet. EtherCAT is an industrial Ethernet communication standard developed by Beckhoff, an industrial equipment manufacturer based in Germany. CAN is a vehicle network standard promoted by Robert Bosch GmbH of Germany.
There are also plans to provide support for the SSCNET III/H optical network standard, which uses fully synchronous communication to deliver improved performance. SSCNET III/H is one of the high-speed motion network standards of communication developed by Mitsubishi Electric Corporation.
The industrial Ethernet communication market, which demands faster communication between devices and their efficient central control, is growing rapidly because there is increasing need to boost factory production efficiency and improve the precision of machine control.
Increasing high-speed real-time responsiveness and reducing processing time deviation in communication and machine control are particularly important issues.
Also, cutting costs, reducing power consumption, and improving safety are much more important than in other markets. The newly developed R-IN32M3-CL and R-IN32M3-EC are designed to meet the industrial network market requirements.
Pricing and Availability
Samples of the first products in R-IN32M3 series, the R-IN32M3-CL and R-IN32M3-EC, will be available in January 2013, priced at US$25 per unit. Mass production of the R-IN32M3 series is scheduled to begin in June 2013 and is expected to reach a scale of 300,000 units per month in April 2015.
