Renesas Releases Major Update of Flexible Software Package Supporting RA Family of 32-Bit Arm Cortex-M Microcontrollers

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Renesas Electronics Corporation, a premier supplier of advanced semiconductor solutions, today announced the release of a new update of its Flexible Software Package (FSP) for the Renesas RA Family of 32-Bit Arm® Cortex®-M microcontrollers (MCUs). The FSP version 1.0 adds new security and connectivity features, advanced neural network, machine learning and motor control capabilities, as well as enhanced compiler, debugger, and development environments. The security and connectivity enhancements permit developers to quickly create compelling and secure IoT endpoint and edge solutions for Industry 4.0, building automation, metering, healthcare, consumer wearable, and home appliance applications.

FSP is ideal for users that want a flexible and open architecture. Customers can re-use their legacy code or combine it with valuable software examples from Renesas that help speed implementation of complex connectivity and security solutions. The FSP comes with FreeRTOS and can be replaced with any other RTOS or middleware to meet each customer’s requirements. The combination of FSP and Arm ecosystem third-party solutions provide a wide range of user choices. Customers can choose the software model that best suits their needs while utilizing Renesas’ extensive line-up of RA 32-bit MCUs.

FSP v1.0 offers new security and connectivity features that enable complete chip-to-cloud connections. The publicly available source code includes middleware stacks to support secure connections with all major cloud providers, including Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, and any third party MQTT broker. New security features include secure key generation and persistent encrypted key storage, hardware acceleration for AES, SHA-2, RSA 2K, NIST and Brainpool elliptic curve cryptography, as well as secured MQTT connections over TLS.

FSP v1.0 also includes neural network, machine learning and motor control support. Arm CMSIS-NN libraries are available and can be combined with new motor control features such as a three-phase general-purpose PWM timer (GPT) and a port output enabled GPT to create a predictive maintenance support solution.

Development tools, including compilers and integrated development environments (IDE) have also been updated and now support Renesas e2 studio, Arm Keil® MDK, and IAR Embedded Workbench® for Arm. The RA Family Smart Configurator (RA SC) enables seamless FSP integration with third party IDEs and compilers. Support for Renesas E2 emulator and E2 emulator Lite debugging emulators and flash programmers has been added to the current debugging suite, which includes SEGGER J-Link™.