MPUs & MCUs
Powerful MCUs now come in compact packages
By Graeme Clark, principal engineer, Renesas Electronics I
n developing the next generation of intelligent products, we must constantly juggle a wide range of user requirements. Users are constantly demanding new products that can run more complex applications, have more features, consume less power, are physically smaller and yet cost less than the previous generation.
These demands have led to the use of more advanced compact package options on the latest microcontrollers to support these requirements.
This demand for performance with reduced power consumption has led Renesas to develop the new RA4L1 family of microcontrollers. A powerful Cortex M33 CPU with 512 Kbytes of dual-bank Flash memory and a wide range of powerful peripheral functions are designed to provide a single-chip microcontroller solution for many consumer and industrial applications. The block diagram of the RA4L1 is shown in Figure 1. To support the continuing drive towards miniaturization, these
Figure 2
bring to a typical microcontroller application, and some of the design decisions we should consider to decide if BGA can provide a good solution for our application.
The RA4L1 is available in three compact package options, a 100 ball, 7mm2
open Figure 1: Block diagram of the RA4L1
microcontrollers are available in a range of compact package options, including low profile quad flat pack (LQFP) options, a quad flat no-lead package (QFN), two ball grid
array (BGA) options and a wafer level chip scale package (WLCSP).
In this article we will look at the features and benefits that using a BGA package can
array BGA package and a 64 ball, 5.5mm2 BGA package, both with 0.5mm pitch, and a 72 ball, 3.64 x 4.28mm WLCSP with 0.4mm pitch. These offer designers the benefits of a physically compact package with very dense I/O capability with a variety of potential layout options depending on the requirements of the application. You can see details of these compact packages in Figure
2.The WLCSP package is essentially the same size as the microcontroller die itself, the wafer level chip scale package option can provide the smallest package option available for a device. The WLCSP is also typically very thin, so it can be useful in applications where height is a key concern, and finally they often use a very fine pitch to maximize the number of balls and the number of available I/O pins in the package. The WLCSP device requires stricter
42 April 2025 Components in Electronics
www.cieonline.co.uk
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