FREE Renesas Dev Board

[RABeng224]

Hey guys, just wanted to let everyone know that Renesas is giving away a free dev board.  Here is the link if you interested.  I haven't played around with their new RL series so this looks like a good way to start.

http://am.renesas.com/products/tools/introductory_evaluation_tools/renesas_demo_kits/yrpbrl78g13/yrpbrl78g13.jsp?campaign=110823Update06

[ElektroQuark]

Europe excluded from the promotion.

[Nermash]

Fail...

[8086]

...because there's no EEs in Europe, right?

[Bored@Work]

...because there's no EEs in Europe, right?

Maybe Renesas learned a thing or two from the last giveway. A lot of freeloaders who had no real use for it applied for a rather expensive board and got angry when their local customs was charging them import tax based on the official, manufacturer suggested price.

There is even a thread here on eevblog, where you can see a few of them shitting their pants.

[AlphZeta]

Anyone has received the board? I registered but haven't heard anything back yet...

[kripton2035]

...because there's no EEs in Europe, right?

Maybe Renesas learned a thing or two from the last giveway. A lot of freeloaders who had no real use for it applied for a rather expensive board and got angry when their local customs was charging them import tax based on the official, manufacturer suggested price.

There is even a thread here on eevblog, where you can see a few of them shitting their pants.

it is not the board that was expensive... but the heavy documentation they could have sent on cd ( or even pdf...)
the book was declared at $250 on the custom sheet, and so I had some EUR 50 to pay for customs on a book I didnt really order...
anyway the card is nice ...

[codeboy2k]

I registered, but haven't received it yet.

[buffalo960]

They sent me an email saying they wouldnt give one to me

[slateraptor]

Submitted a request on the 26th with no indication of whether I'd be receiving one.

[codeboy2k]

I registered, but haven't received it yet.

Update- I received my dev board the other day..

So, to those of you who were approved and are still waiting, it should come any day now.

[slateraptor]

Update- I received my dev board the other day..

So, to those of you who were approved and are still waiting, it should come any day now.

When you say "approved" did you receive an e-mail explicitly saying to expect one in the mail? Or was it just the e-mail saying that they've received your application?

[codeboy2k]

Update- I received my dev board the other day..

So, to those of you who were approved and are still waiting, it should come any day now.

When you say "approved" did you receive an e-mail explicitly saying to expect one in the mail? Or was it just the e-mail saying that they've received your application?

ok, more specifically, I first got the auto-generated email that my application was received. About 30 days later I got another email that I was approved to receive it.  Then 5 days later I got a
third email saying that it was shipped and they gave me the fedex tracking number. I got it a couple days later.

That's the process I saw.

Cheers!

[slateraptor]

For the record, I've been officially denied. Renesas is henceforth permanently stricken from my list of possible microcontroller vendors.

Dear ---,
Thank you for registering for the free Renesas RL78 Promotion Board This email is automatically generated, so please do not reply to this message. We are sorry that we are unable to fulfill your request for a free kit. Instead, we invite you to join our University program.

[bombledmonk]

Here's a second link for free boards.  I'm not sure if it's part of the same promotion.  It is still US only.
http://www.digikey.com/product-highlights/us/en/renesas-rx-family/230

[slateraptor]

Here's a second link for free boards.  I'm not sure if it's part of the same promotion.  It is still US only.
http://www.digikey.com/product-highlights/us/en/renesas-rx-family/230

Count me out...

Renesas is henceforth permanently stricken from my list of possible microcontroller vendors.

[westfw]

Huh.  Submitted my request back at the end of september, got an immediate "confirmation of request" and didn't hear anything else till dec-9, when I got an "approved" email.  Then I receive the board yesterday...

[westfw]

So I've been studying the datasheet for the rl78 to learn more about using my eval board...

• this is a descendant of the z80; it even has an HL register.  NEC (before becoming part of Renesas) used to make actual Z80s, IIRC, and the famous V20 (8088 compatible) had z80 emulation mode.  I guess they're still doing it.
• It reminds me of 70s era microprocessors, and not in a good way.  A true CISC microcontroller, with extended address spaces tacked on with duct tape and chewing gum.  All the ugliness of a PIC14 architecture, and none of the simplicity.  icky!
• The datasheets are awful.  Worse than TI's.  There are translation issues, but those aren't the only things that make them awful.  (they MIGHT be better if you were already familiar with the previous generations of NEC z80-like chips and were just trying to learn the specific of the RL78 line.)
• I don't like the assembler syntax either.  "!x" is a 16bit address, and "!!x" is a 20bit address.  Unless it's "$" and "$!" instead.  Not to be confused with "#", which is an immediate value...  Occasional bits of x86 syntax are in there as well (for based indexed addressing.)  The SFR names are awful.

I suppose that these are chips that one is supposed to choose based on excellence of semiconductor implementation (speed, low-power, density, etc) and peripheral features, rather than the elegance of the basic architecture.  But...  Sigh.

[slateraptor]

The datasheets are awful.  Worse than TI's.

Worse than TI datasheets?! Blasphemy!!

[Berni]

Looks like Renesas is really keen on getting popular as i saw quite a few give aways from them and i did get a devboard from then quite a few years ago. And til now i haven't made anything using it (Well it did have next to no IO brought out) But yeah i stopped going for these freebie devboards and such since i know im not going to make anything useful out of it. Why figure out all the hidden quirks of some new micro and figure out the IDE and all that when i can just grab a PIC and get going straight away.

I did once get a freebie devboard from microchip and i was exited to see how the capacitive sensing on it works, turned out it didn't work at all, what a bummer.

[Greg J]

They should start giving them away in europe too.
There's tons of EE labs and manufacturers in europe. For instance, a lot of TVs and STBs are still manufactured in likes of Poland and region. So its not only china!
And the amount of R&D in the UK.
They gotta be shitting me for not sending it to the UK !

[Bored@Work]

They should start giving them away in europe too.

Renesas, like many companies these days, divide the world into regions, allocating resources, like managers and marking budgets to those regions. These days Europe is typically lumped into a region abbreviated as EMEA. That is short for Europe, Middle East and Africa.

That tells you a lot about how uninteresting Europe is for large companies these days. A low-volume area not worth to exclusively allocate resources to. A area that can be handle like the Middle East and Africa in one go, an also-ran. Companies don't allocate much marketing budget to it, and don't care much about it.

[Short Circuit]

They should start giving them away in europe too.

That tells you a lot about how uninteresting Europe is for large companies these days. A low-volume area not worth to exclusively allocate resources to. A area that can be handle like the Middle East and Africa in one go, an also-ran. Companies don't allocate much marketing budget to it, and don't care much about it.

I think you get it a bit wrong; it tells how uninteresting ME & africa are. Just like how uninteresting middle & south americas are for the 'americas' division. Lot of design and pretty much all specification (including component selection) is being done here in Europe, or USA, Canada. Ok, and a little bit Australia

A possibile explanation for such regional actions is that companies typically want steady growt. So if europe & asia have expanded already to the target, but US/CA not, then this could be a reason for a regional promotion.

[AlphZeta]

Wow, I almost forgot about it till yesterday.... I just received a confirmation email saying that it will be shipped to me in a few weeks. It took a good two months for them to review the requests? Anyway, for those who haven't been rejected it may come to you soon as well!

[ronwoch]

Hahaha, I did forget about it till the 12th, when I got the email from digi-key. It almost looked like spam at first, nearly deleted it. If gmail didn't display the first line of the email with 'give away from digi-key' I probably would have. Anyway, should have it in another week? We'll see.