Renesas Electronics Corporation announced the RZ/A3UL group of microprocessors (MPU) that enables both a high-definition human-machine interface (HMI) and quick startup for applications that require high throughput and real-time capabilities. The new RZ/A3UL allows customers to achieve the full potential of a real-time operating system (RTOS) while leveraging the performance boost provided by the 64-bit Arm® Cortex®-A55 CPU core with a maximum operating frequency of 1 GHz. Using an RTOS allows systems to start up instantly, in less than a second after boot-up.

This feature is ideal for systems that require a fast response time such as industrial equipment, home appliances and office automation equipment with liquid crystal displays or control panels, as well as audio equipment and POS terminals. The new RZ/A3UL MPUs integrates an Octal-SPI memory interface*1 that facilitates simpler and more compact board designs. In addition, the new devices include versions that support a DDR3L/DDR4 memory interface to enable connection of high-speed DRAM.

For example, the DDR3L/DDR4 memory interface achieves a data transfer speed that is approximately 10 times faster than the Octal-SPI memory interface, maximizing the performance needed to enable an HD (1280x720) class display and an interactive and more sophisticated HMI utilizing camera input or various types of sensors. The RZ/A3UL supports the industry's two leading RTOSes: FreeRTOS and Azure RTOS. Since Renesas is a license provider of Azure RTOS for the RZ Family, users can simply download the high-performance Azure RTOS from GitHub and get started immediately.

In addition, Renesas offers a Flexible Software Package including FreeRTOS and HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer) drivers that developers can use as a reference when developing their own applications. An extensive suite of middleware is also available for both operating systems, further reducing the time and cost for development.