Renesas Electronics Corporation (TSE: 6723), a premier supplier of advanced semiconductor solutions, today extended its industry-leading RISC-V portfolio with the first RISC-V MCU designed for voice-controlled HMI (human-machine interface) systems. The new R9A06G150 32-bit ASSP, developed in collaboration with RISC-V ecosystem partners, provides a complete, cost-effective, production-ready voice-control system solution that eliminates the need for RISC-V tools and upfront software investment.
Targeting residential and commercial building automation, home appliances, toys and healthcare devices, the new ASSP supports multiple languages and user-defined keywords for voice-recognition operations. The foundation of a turnkey voice-control solution, the R9A06G150 is pre-programmed using specialized application code developed by independent design houses with a proven ability to bring customer designs to volume production.
The introduction reinforces Renesas as a leader in the emerging market for the open-source RISC-V ISA (instruction set architecture) and follows introductions last year of a 32-bit motor-control ASSP and 64-bit general-purpose RZ/Five MPUs based on a 64-bit RISC-V CPU.
“Renesas continues to broaden our RISC-V MCU/MPU offering, in this case by delivering designers an innovative voice-command HMI with pre-developed software that shortens development time and time to market,” said Roger Wendelken, Senior Vice President in Renesas’ IoT and Infrastructure Business Unit. “Through close collaboration with the RISC-V partner ecosystem, this flexible, scalable ASSP solution allows customers interested in voice control to support different application classes on the same MCU hardware platform.”
Renesas’ new R9A06G150 voice-control HMI ASSP is based on RISC-V processing IP from Andes Technology Corp., which incorporated its AndesCore D25F CPU core based on the AndeStar™ V5 architecture. “We are excited to be part of Renesas’ turnkey voice control solution,” said Frankwell Lin, Andes’ Chairman and CEO. “The 32-bit AndesCore D25F was engineered to deliver high per-MHz performance in a small silicon footprint. Major mixed-signal ASSP developers such as Renesas can thus concentrate on their core engineering innovation and outsource non-critical elements of their design to CPU core suppliers such as Andes.”
Renesas will deliver the first RISC-V voice-control ASSP pre-programmed with dedicated application code developed by leading independent design house, Cyberon, an expert in voice-recognition technology, and Orbstar, a systems integrator specializing in embedded solutions. As they did with Renesas’ previous motor control ASSP, SEGGER Microcontroller GmbH will provide support for the voice-control ASSP with its complete ecosystem, including Embedded Studio and J-Link.
Key Features of the R9A06G150 Voice-Control HMI ASSP Solution
- 100MHz CPU with DSP instructions, floating-point extension and cost-optimized specification
- Specialized audio PDM & SSI I/F for seamless connection to microphones and codecs
- Compatible with low-cost analog microphones and outputs
- Low power consumption helps end products to save energy for a greener environment through optimal mix of lowest active current, reduced standby current, background operation, SRAM power-off choices, fast wakeup, low power timers
- Controlled by external host I/F via SCI/Uart, SPI, I3C or I2C
- Small package support for cost and integration effectiveness (QFN 48, 32, 24)
- 256K program flash, 128K RAM, 16KB data flash
- QSPI interface for easy memory expansion
- Complete reference kit: hardware, software, tools, hardware/software datasheets, GUI manual, app notes
Renesas has designed a Winning Combination, Voice Control HMI with RISC-V ASSP, that employs the R9A06G150 and other compatible devices from the Renesas portfolio to support general-purpose voice-control HMI systems. This integrated, pre-programmed, turnkey solution, adds HMI voice control capability without any user code programming, and can be used in IoT, hands-free, or smart appliance applications. The complete reference design enables customized wake-up words and commands and supports multiple languages. Renesas’ Winning Combinations are technically vetted system architectures from mutually compatible devices that work together seamlessly to bring an optimized low-risk design for a faster time to market. Renesas offers more than 300 Winning Combinations with a wide range of products from the Renesas portfolio to enable customers to speed up the design process and bring their products to market more quickly.
