Renesas introduces RX74M and RX74N chips for industrial control
Renesas has introduced RX74M and RX74N chips that run an industrial device’s program and send commands to its other parts. A ventilation-system builder could use them to control a motor and communicate with other equipment. The company says their MRAM storage can shorten programming time and downtime during updates.
Program storage feeding a controller that sends commands to a motor driver.
View full-size imageWhat changes in program storage?
A device needs to keep its program when power is off. MRAM in these chips does that and allows new data to be written without a separate erase step first. This can make writing a new program or settings faster.
Which model, and what remains conditional?
Renesas announced the pair on 22 October. RX74M has more wired-network facilities for interconnected factory equipment; RX74N targets general industrial equipment. Reduced downtime is a manufacturer claim. The actual benefit depends on the device design and its update procedure.