Renesas Electronics, a premier provider of advanced semiconductor solutions, announced the M16C/6S1 Group of 16-bit microcontrollers (MCUs) with built-in power line communication (PLC) functions enabling data transfer speeds among the fastest in the industry in the low-frequency band (10 kilohertz [kHz] to 450 kHz). The M16C/6S1 MCUs are suitable for applications such as smart meters, lighting fixtures, and electric household appliances equipped with data communication capabilities, which are essential for the visualization of energy usage such as electrical power and quantitative evaluation.
Renesas Electronics already mass produces the M16C/6S Group of MCUs that combines a PLC modem and an MCU on a single chip. Now the new M16C/6S1 Group provides substantially faster communication speeds and on-chip implementation of functionality that previously required connection of an external device, allowing still further reduction of the overall system size.
Key features of the M16C/6S1 Group of MCUs:
- Industry-leading fast data transfer speeds in the low-frequency band (10 kHz to 450 kHz)
- Up to 256 KB of large-capacity, on-chip flash memory
- On-chip analog signal processing block (analog front-end
