Renesas Launches RX72T Microcontrollers for Advanced Servo Control in Industrial Robots

Renesas Electronics has unveiled the RX72T Group, a line of 32‑bit microcontrollers engineered for high‑performance motor control. Equipped with dedicated hardware accelerator IP, the RX72T delivers the rapid, complex calculations that modern robotic systems demand. An impressive 1,160 CoreMark score—verified by EEMBC Benchmarks—sets it apart as the top‑scoring 5V MCU running at 200 MHz.

As compact industrial robots grow in popularity, precise control of a motor’s position, direction, speed, and torque is essential. The RX72T’s architecture is specifically designed to meet this need, providing tight integration of sensor data and actuator commands.

With built‑in accelerator hardware, the RX72T performs high‑speed position and speed control calculations in under 1.5 µs. This capability gives designers the flexibility to develop custom servo systems on a single chip, rather than relying on pre‑built, often costly, commercial servo solutions.

Traditional software‑only implementations can consume excessive processing time, while fully hardware‑based approaches may limit customization. The RX72T strikes a balance: it implements single‑precision floating‑point trigonometric functions (sin, cos, arctan, hypot) and a register‑bank save routine in hardware, preserving programmability while accelerating key operations. The register‑bank save feature also enhances interrupt handling speed and precision. In addition, the MCUs include 200 MHz PWM inverter control timers capable of up to four 3‑phase channels, two 5‑phase channels, or ten single‑phase channels.

Manufacturers using Renesas’ Failure Detection e‑AI Solutions for motors can seamlessly integrate them with the RX72T. Motor state metrics—current and speed—can drive both control loops and AI‑based fault detection within a single MCU, thanks to hardware‑based failsafe functions and a built‑in cryptography module that secures communication data.

Renesas supplies complete development tools, including sensorless and encoder vector‑control programs, the Renesas Motor Workbench 2.0 for real‑time debugging, and an RX72T CPU card that supports the 24 V motor‑control evaluation kit.

With the RX72T, Renesas offers a broad portfolio of 5 V motor‑control MCUs that maintain exceptional software compatibility. This facilitates a smooth migration path across the RX MCU family—from the high‑end RX72T down to the RX23T (40 MHz), RX24T (80 MHz), and RX66T (160 MHz). The RX72T Group is fully compatible with the RX66T Group, which incorporates the RXv3 core.