Renesas — RA8T1 Series Microcontrollers

The RA8T1 microcontrollers from Renesas are based on the Arm Cortex®-M85 processor, offering industry-leading performance measured at 3,000 CoreMark points, or 6.39 CoreMark points/MHz. 

The deterministic, low-latency, real-time operation enabled by this high performance allows system designers to use the RA8T1 MCU in applications that would previously have required a microprocessor. The RA8T1 series is part of the Renesas RA family of MCUs based on Cortex-M processors. Existing designs built for other RA devices can easily be ported to the RA8T1 devices. 

The RA8T1 MCUs deploy Arm Helium technology, which provides up to a four times improvement in DSP and machine learning performance compared to MCUs based on the Cortex-M7 processor. This performance boost can enable designers to eliminate an additional DSP in some systems.  

The combination of high CPU performance and Helium technology also provides a dramatic improvement in the MCUs’ ability to perform AI and machine learning tasks. For instance, the RA8T1 MCUs enable edge and endpoint devices to implement natural language processing in voice AI and user verification applications, using Helium to accelerate neural network processing. The design of AI applications is assisted by Renesas’ embedded AI and TinyML solutions for automotive, industrial and commercial products, based on its Reality AI tools.  

The security of AI and connected devices benefits from the advanced features of the RA8T1 series MCUs. The Cortex-M85 core includes Arm TrustZone® technology, which enables isolation and secure/non-secure partitioning of memory, peripherals and code. The MCUs also feature the most advanced Renesas security IP, RSIP-E51A, which provides leading-edge cryptographic accelerators and supports a true secure boot. 

The RA8T1 MCUs offer peripheral features that are optimized for advanced motor-control functions. This also makes them well suited for access control applications, where the RA8T1 microcontroller can be used for AI-reinforced user verification – such as facial recognition – in addition to lock actuator control. 

The RA8T1 MCUs are supported by the Renesas Flexible Software Package (FSP). The FSP enables faster application development by providing all the infrastructure software needed, including multiple real-time operating systems, a board support package, peripheral drivers, middleware, and connectivity, networking, and security stacks. It also includes reference software for building complex AI, motor control and cloud designs.