Winbond Electronics, the world's leading supplier of semiconductor memory solutions, combines HyperRAM™ and SpiStack ^® (NOR+NAND) with Renesas' Arm(R)-based microprocessor (MPU) RZ/A2M, July 7, 2021 announced that it has confirmed its operation. Designed for high-speed processing of artificial intelligence (AI) imaging embedded in smart appliances, service robots, and industrial machinery, this RZ/A2M customer can now use DRAM, NOR flash, and NAND flash, which are currently mainstream in embedded systems. This means that you can get technical support and long-term supply from Winbond for all types of external memory such as.

Renesas' RZ/A2M is suitable for applications using HMI (Human Machine Interface), especially cameras. It supports the MIPI camera interface widely used in mobile devices, and is equipped with a DRP (Dynamically Reconfigurable Processor) that processes input images at high speed. Equipped with 2 channels of Ethernet and enhanced security with a cryptographic hardware accelerator. It enables safe and secure high-speed network connections, and can be applied to image recognition applications in a wide range of systems, from home appliances to industrial equipment.

Winbond's HyperRAM is ideal for embedded AI and image processing where electronic circuits must be miniaturized, providing sufficient capacity and data bandwidth to support compute-intensive workloads such as image recognition. . SpiStack, on the other hand, allows design flexibility by storing code in NOR flash and data in NAND flash.

Below is a configuration example (memory part only) of an embedded AI imaging system that combines Winbond HyperRAM and SpiStack with Renesas RZ/A2M.

Configuration example of an embedded AI imaging system

● Winbond HyperRAM: Ideal for use as a large-capacity working memory for e-AI and image processing of AIoT devices.

● Winbond SpiStack (NOR+NAND): RZ/A2M boot code and application code can be stored on the NOR side, and multiple large-capacity data such as embedded AI learning data and camera images can be stored on the NAND side. .

● Renesas RZ/A2M: Mobile Industry Processor Interface (MIPI) cameras and Dynamically Reconfigurable Processors (DRPs) can be used to accelerate embedded AI imaging applications.

Features of Winbond products:

Winbond HyperRAM achieves clock frequencies up to 200MHz, power supply voltages of 3.3V or 1.8V, and maximum data transfer rates of 400MB/s. It also offers ultra-low power consumption in both operational and hybrid sleep modes. Taking 64Mbit HyperRAM as an example, at room temperature the power consumption is 70uW@1.8V in standby mode and only 35uW@1.8V in hybrid sleep mode. In addition, HyperRAM has only 13 signal terminals, greatly simplifying PCB layout design. This also means that the MPU can be used for other purposes, allowing more pins to be placed, or using the MPU with fewer pins to be more cost effective.

Winbond SpiStack (NOR+NAND) is formed by stacking NOR and NAND dies into one package. For example, by combining 64Mbit serial NOR and 1Gbit QspiNAND dies, users can store boot code and application code in NOR and large data in NAND. SpiStack (NOR+NAND) has only 6 signal terminals regardless of the number of stacked dies. The active die can be switched by software die select command (C2h) and factory-assigned die ID. Individual die clock frequencies are up to 104MHz, equivalent to 416MHz (50Mbytes/sec transfer rate) when using Quad SPI. In addition, SpiStack (NOR+NAND) supports concurrent operations such as programming one die while reading from the other.

Comment from Shigeki Kato, General Manager, Renesas Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions Division:

"As embedded AI systems become more sophisticated and complex, the combined use of RZ/A2M and external memory will enable us to handle increases in the capacity of application codes and trained models," says Renesas Electronics. the company said. “Now that we have confirmed the operation of RZ/A2M and Windbond HyperRAM & SpiStack, customers will be able to procure external RAM and Flash from Windbond all at once and use them with peace of mind. ”

Comment from Mr. Naomi Mimura, General Manager, Marketing & FAE Department, Winbond Japan:

"By adopting Winbond's HyperRAM and SpiStack (NOR+NAND), it is possible to reduce the mounting area on the PCB, the number of traces, and the BOM cost," said Winbond Electronics Co., Ltd. "The package size of HyperRAM and SpiStack (NOR+NAND) is only 8x6mm, HyperRAM has 13 signal terminals and SpiStack (NOR+NAND) has 6 signal terminals. Compared to conventional SDRAM and parallel NOR/NAND, , both the package size and pin count have been reduced by approximately 80%.Together with the Renesas RZ/A2M, users can take advantage of the total memory solution offered by Winbond."