The Renesas RA6 wireless microcontrollers are enabling a new generation of battery-powered connected devices. Available since December, the RA6W1 is the company’s first MCU to support Wi-Fi 6 and the first to support dual-band operation. The soon-to-be available RA6W2 adds Bluetooth LE.
The new MCUs integrate an Arm Cortex-M33 core, a popular microcontroller CPU. A subsystem licensed from Ceva provides wireless connectivity for the RA6W1 comes from. As is typical of wireless MCUs, a 20 MHz 1 × 1 radio implements Wi-Fi. To speed up customers’ development and certification processes, Renesas offers pre-integrated modules compliant with major international RF standards. For customers requiring just a chip, the smallest package is 3.47 × 4.06 mm. The RA6W2 comes in a larger BGA package. Price varies by volume and configuration and will be around $2.30 in 10k quantities.
The Wi-Fi radio supports target wake time, which conserves energy. Efficiency is critical for battery-powered applications, such as smart locks, baby monitors, irrigation systems, hospital beds, and other consumer, healthcare, and industrial devices. The RA6W1 requires as little as 200 nA in its lowest-power state. In a more typical deep-sleep mode, it still needs only 4 µA.
Wireless MCU Competition
Numerous competitors offer RA6W alternatives, including Espressif, Infineon, MediaTek, NXP, Realtek, Silicon Labs, and Texas Instruments. Conspicuously absent from the list is STMicroelectronics, which partners with Qualcomm on Wi-Fi MCU modules. The recently released Espressif ESP32-C61 has a RISC-V core, whereas all other competitors integrate Arm CPUs. Compared with the RA6W2, the NXP RW612 adds Thread and Zigbee wireless protocols and operates its CPU at up to 260 MHz. It requires less than 10 µA in deep sleep, but NXP withholds the exact value.
Bottom Line
The prevalence of wireless microcontrollers reflects how essential Wi-Fi and Bluetooth LE have become to embedded systems. An MCU supplier for several decades, Renesas required a competitive offering. The RA6W1 and RA6W2 deliver connectivity, ease of use, and low power, which we’re confident will earn them spots on customers’ short lists.