Renesas Electronics has introduced the RZ/T2N, a 64-bit microprocessor (MPU) that combines real-time motor control, industrial Ethernet connectivity and application processing on a single chip.
Designed for industrial robots, multi-axis servo drives and programmable logic controllers (PLCs), the device aims to reduce component count, board area and system development complexity.
“Industrial equipment designers must balance competing requirements: functionality and performance on one hand, footprint and cost on the other,” said Hari Pendurty, vice president of the EP Edge AI and Application Processors Business Division at Renesas.
“The RZ/T2N solves this challenge by consolidating the essential functions onto a single chip. Combined with our scalable product portfolio, the RZ/T2N gives customers the flexibility to scale their designs for next-generation industrial automation.”
The RZ/T2N integrates dual Arm Cortex-A55 cores operating at up to 1.2GHz for application processing, alongside two Cortex-R52 cores running at up to 800MHz for real-time tasks. It supports EtherCAT, PROFINET RT/IRT and EtherNet/IP, as well as Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN) for time-synchronised industrial communications.
By consolidating functions traditionally handled by multiple devices, the MPU can operate as either a network controller or a network device. This allows engineers to develop different equipment types on a common platform and reuse designs across product families.
For motion control, the RZ/T2N integrates peripherals supporting up to four motor axes. Each Cortex-R52 core has 576 KB of error-correcting code (ECC)-protected tightly coupled memory (TCM), designed to minimise execution-time variation and support precise real-time processing.
Two encoder interface channels are provided per axis, supporting Tamagawa T-Format, HIPERFACE DSL, A-format, EnDat 2.2 and BiSS C, alongside the newer EnDat 3 and BiSS Line protocols. This makes the device suitable for applications including SCARA and delta robots.
Three Gigabit Ethernet MACs, an Ethernet switch and an EtherCAT SubDevice Controller (ESC) support network integration without external communication ICs. Reliability features include High-availability Seamless Redundancy (HSR), Parallel Redundancy Protocol (PRP) and Frame Replication and Elimination for Reliability (FRER).
Security functions include secure boot, secure firmware updates, Arm TrustZone and a cryptographic library. ECC protection also extends across CPU memory, on-chip SRAM and DDR memory.
The RZ/T2N and its evaluation board are available now. Renesas will demonstrate the device at electronica 2026 in Munich, Hall C5, Stand 479.
