Renesas Electronics is expanding its 32-bit MCU product family‘s support for Microsoft Azure RTOS with Simple Licensing for secure embedded IoT development.

Azure RTOS components are integrated into the Renesas RA flexible configuration software package and the Renesas Synergy software platform, and are also easily available through the Renesas RX Smart Configurator.

Customers designing products using all of Renesas‘ mainstream 32-bit MCUs can now use the Microsoft Azure Real-TIme OperaTIng System (RTOS) embedded development kit, including its powerful Azure IoT middleware. The recently released Flexible Software Package (FSP) version 3.0 for Renesas RA MCUs and Synergy Software Package (SSP) version 2.0 for Synergy MCUs integrate Azure RTOS and work out of the box. Renesas provides Azure RTOS support for RX MCUs through the e2 studio integrated development environment.

Microsoft Azure RTOS includes Azure RTOS ThreadX, an advanced real-time operating system designed for deeply embedded applications that provides features including real-time multithreading, inter-thread communication and synchronization, and memory management. At the same time, Azure RTOS ThreadX can also provide advanced features including picokernel architecture, preemptive scheduling threshold setting, event chaining, and a rich set of system services.

"Our partnership with Microsoft has reached an important milestone and we are delighted that customers can use this leading RTOS platform on our 32-bit MCUs," said Roger Wendelken, senior vice president of the IoT and Infrastructure Business Division at Renesas Electronics. The hardware integration approach strives to ensure that customers have a seamless development experience with access to pre-integrated project templates and a smart configurator. This integration approach also uses the unique capabilities of the Renesas Secure Encryption Engine for a very solid security foundation."

"Empowering developers is one of the most effective ways for organizations to unlock innovation and accelerate time to value," said Sam George, group vice president of Microsoft‘s Azure IoT Group. "The integration of Azure RTOS and Renesas Electronics FSP/SSP reflects the ambition of both parties - —This collaboration combines Renesas’ leading development experience with the secure, scalable and open edge-to-cloud IoT capabilities of the Azure IoT platform. Now is the perfect time to build products based on Renesas 32-bit MCUs.”

In addition to Azure RTOS ThreadX, developers using RA, RX and Synergy have access to the following middleware stacks:

• Azure RTOS FileX high performance FAT compatible file system

• Azure RTOS GUIX embedded graphical user interface (GUI) application design environment

• Azure RTOS TraceX Windows-based analysis tool

• Azure RTOS NetX Duo industrial grade IPv4 and IPv6 TCP/IP network stack

• Azure RTOS USBX high performance USB stack

Renesas Electronics provides a complete framework for developers to connect securely and leverage the power of Azure IoT. These cloud platforms come with a number of different connectivity options out of the box, including Bluetooth, cellular, ultra-wideband and Wi-Fi 6/6e. These Azure certified kits will be available through the Azure Device Catalog.