Renesas Electronics Corporation recently announced that it has delivered more than one billion microcontrollers from the RX Family of 32-bit MCUs, which incorporate Renesas' proprietary RX CPU core. Since its launch in 2009, the RX Family has expanded to include general-purpose, motor control, touch sensing, and industrial Ethernet applications, and has been adopted in a wide range of consumer, industrial, and IoT applications. In the home air conditioner compressor market, for example, RX MCUs’ outstanding inverter control has led to adoption by more than 70% of major manufacturers around the world.

“As the world’s leading MCU supplier, we are pleased and proud to work with outstanding customers around the world to achieve this significant milestone,” said Roger Wendelken, Senior Vice President in Renesas’ IoT and Infrastructure Business Unit. “RX MCUs with Renesas' proprietary cores have established a strong position in applications that require power efficiency and true real-time performance.”

RX MCUs deliver high CPU performance due to their sophisticated architecture for embedded systems. Currently, four series of RX MCUs are available (RX100, RX200, RX600, and the high-end RX700) offering a wide range of performance, on-board memory, and a variety of peripheral functions and packages. Following the introduction of the latest RXv3 core in 2018, Renesas is also working on the development of the next core with the aim of surpassing the performance of the RXv3 core.

In order to ease implementation of RX MCUs, Renesas offers a smart configurator and code generator in response to the growing need for low and no code to reduce the development burden of embedded systems. Renesas continually works to expand the development environment to improve user experience (UX), shorten development time, and reduce development cost.

RX MCUs are key products in Winning Combinations that combine numerous products within the Renesas portfolio that work together seamlessly. Examples of Winning Combinations featuring the RX devices include the AC Drives/GP Inverters Solution and High-Voltage Motor Driver Solution. In 2021, during COVID-19, Renesas provided aventilator solution Winning Combination that contributed to saving lives. Furthermore, with the desire to minimize physical contact from a hygiene standpoint, there are a growing number of applications in non-contact applications, such as "touch-free user interface reference design," which utilize robust and reliable capacitive touch sensing technology.

As a result of their performance advantages in a wide range of applications, RX MCUs are expected to achieve a record high growth of more than 30% in 2021, with sales exceeding 35 billion yen. Renesas has announced that it will step up investment in production capacity. In 2022, by combining internal production with outside foundries, Renesas will establish a more flexible production system that will support expected growth in the RX MCU family of more than 30% over 2021.