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Toshihiko Seki
Senior Director
Published: April 14, 2021

The 8/16-bit microcontrollers are expected to continue to have stable demand in the future, with the addition of IoT device endpoint applications, such as sensor nodes requiring low standby current with simple functions, in addition to home appliance applications that have been the main focus of 8/16-bit microcontrollers in the past.

This year, the RL78 Family celebrates the 10th anniversary of its launch in the summer of 2011. Thanks to all the strong support from the customers, we now ship more than 1 billion units per year, and we have established a firm position in the 16-bit microcontroller market. 

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Figure 1. RL78 Microcontroller Product Roadmap

To further enhance the extensive line-up as a general-purpose microcontroller with the industry's lowest power consumption, the RL78 Family released the RL78/G23 Group, a second-generation product line. The RL78/G23 uses new process technology that enables maintaining compatibility with the previous RL78 Family products while implementing industry-leading low-power consumption, a large memory capacity of up to 768KB Flash memory and 48KB SRAM memory capacity, and capacitive touch which is a highly desired user interface for consumer electronics applications. Also, enhancing the security functions required for IoT applications.

In terms of the development environment, a more user-friendly GUI-based Smart Configurator is released. New features such as driver code generation for peripheral functions and SMS/ELCL, which has been recently implemented in the RL78/G23 Group, can be easily designed. In addition to a more user-friendly development environment, a low-cost evaluation board (Fast Prototyping Board) with Arduino UNO and Grove interfaces is also available. Users are able to develop and evaluate by simply connecting it with a USB cable to their PC, without any additional hardware tools.

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Figure 2. RL78/G23 Microcontroller and RL78/G23-64p Fast Prototyping Board 

We believe that the RL78/G23 is the best solution for low-end microcontrollers in the IoT era. As the new option in the RL78 Family of products that have been patronized for many years, we look forward that RL78/G23 will be widely used in various applications, such as sensor nodes, home appliances, battery-powered equipment, etc.

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