Renesas R7FA8E2AFDCBD#UC0 – an affordable Cortex-M85 MCU with a high-performance video output
With the Renesas RA8E family, the Japanese microcontroller powerhouse introduced the world to a simple yet powerful design. They provide ARM’s cutting-edge Cortex-M85 core on affordable silicon, enabling hardware-accelerated artificial intelligence at lower price points. The RA8E2 family is a variant of this winning concept with high-performance video output.
Faster and with more memory
The RA8E1 family has a Cortex M85 core which reaches a maximum clock speed of 360 MHz. In the case of the RA8E2, the maximum speed is 480 MHz. Furthermore, the memory complement is increased to 672 kilobytes - the additional memory can be used as a frame buffer.
Graphical output for visualization
While the compute core is more than fast enough to handle framebuffer computations, the RA8E2 version provides an additional peripheral called GLCD. Writing it out yields the sentence Graphics LCD Controller - the name exactly describes what you get inside the box.
Its signal output can reach WVGA resolution - this is a pixel value of 800 x 480 pixels and should be more than enough for most applications where no streaming video is required.
RA8E1 versus RA8E2
Comparing the two members of the Renesas family to one another yields additional interesting differences. Not only does the RA8E2 have more memory - but it also provides a graphical accelerator, as discussed above. One interesting omission on the RA8E2 is the ethernet controller - this peripheral can only be found on the smaller version.
Another interesting differentiating factor is the housing. The RA8E2 is available only in a BGA housing - in the case of the R7FA8E2AFDCBD#UC0 SKU discussed in this article, the layout presents itself as shown in the figure below. Due to this, the controller is best suited to industrial pick-and-place positioning - the small case size saves space on the PCB.
The main cause for the increase in the number of pins is the above-mentioned graphic LCD controller - given that it uses the panel-native parallel bus, transmitting the three-color components alone requires a total of 24 data lines. Nevertheless, the RA8E2 also comes with a set of classic GPIO peripherals similar to the ones found in the RA8E1.
Conclusion
If a design is under cost pressure but can benefit both from a graphical accelerator and AI acceleration, the R7FA8E2AFDCBD#UC0 is an excellent contender. It provides ARM’s most modern AI IP and high-performance video output. In short, an excellent winning combination.