Renesas Launches Its First Dual-Band Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi/Bluetooth Low Energy Chips, the RA6W1 and W2
Company demonstrates their capabilities with a smart doggy door and a human-machine interface.
Embedded hardware and Internet of Things (IoT) specialist Renesas has announced its first dual-band Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi/Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) combination microcontroller units, targeting the IoT and connected home projects: the RA6W1 and RA6W2.
"We're offering our customers the flexibility to design with a standalone Wi-Fi device, a Wi-Fi/Bluetooth LE combo, or fully integrated modules depending on their needs," says Renesas' Chandana Pairla, vice president of the company's Connectivity Solutions Division, of its latest launches. "These wireless solutions save power, simplify system design and lower BOM [Bill of Materials] cost. With hosted or hostless implementation options, customers can confidently begin their wireless onboarding journey and seamlessly integrate into next-generation connected systems."
Both the RA6W1 and RA6W2 are built around an Arm Cortex-M33 microcontroller core running at up to 160MHz and with a generous 704kB of static RAM (SRAM), allowing for full independent operation — though the company says they're also compatible with the company's wide RA microcontroller range, operating as a networking coprocessor. Both are claimed to be optimized for low-power operation, drawing a claimed 200nA to 4µA in sleep mode and under 50µA in Delivery Traffic Indication Message (DTIM10) mode.
Connectivity differs depending on which model you choose: the RA6W1 has a dual-band 2.4GHz and 5GHz Wi-Fi 6 radio module only, while the RA6W2 adds a Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) radio. Both include hardware-accelerated AES-256 cryptography, a true random number generator (TRNG), and on-the-fly decryption support with execute-in-place (XiP) for their flash storage. Both are also Matter 1.4 certified, the company has confirmed.
The RA6W1 is now available in FCQFN and WLCSP packages, alongside RRQ61001 and RRQ61051 module variants; the RA6W2 will be launched in the first quarter of next year in a BGA package, Renesas has confirmed. As is usual, the company has also created two reference designs for projects built using the parts: a human-machine interface (HMI) for smart homes and an automatic pet door and tracking system.