V850

The V850 CPU cores

General information
Launched	1994; 27 years ago (1994)
Discontinued	current
Common manufacturer(s)	Renesas Electronics (formerly NEC)
Performance
Max. CPU clock rate	32 kHz to 320 MHz
Data width	32
Address width	32
Cache
L1 cache	configurable
Architecture and classification
Application	Embedded, Mobile equipment, Air conditioner, Automotive
Min. feature size	0.8 μm to 40 nm
Microarchitecture	V810 (1991), V850 (1994), V850E (1996), V850E1 (1999), V850ES (2002), V850E2 (2004), V850E1F (2005), V850E2v2 (FIX ME), V850E2v3 (2009), V850E2v4 (2010), V850E2v3S (2011), V850E3v5 (2014)
Instruction set	V800 Series
Instructions	v850: 74 v850e: 81 v850e1: 80 (83) v850e1f: 96 v850e2: 89 v850e2v3: 98 V850e3v5: FIX ME
Extensions	E/E1/E1F/E2/ E2M/E2R/E2S/E3
Physical specifications
Cores	configurable
Products, models, variants
Product code name(s)	μPD70P3xxx μPD703xxx μPD70F3xxx R7F70xxxx
Variant(s)	V850 Family, RH850 Family
History
Predecessor	"V80" CISC core

V850 is a 32-bit RISC CPU architecture produced by Renesas Electronics for embedded microcontrollers. It was designed by NEC as a replacement for their earlier NEC V60 family, and introduced shortly before NEC sold their designs to Renesas in the early 1990s. It continues to be developed by Renesas as of 2018.

V850 Family has been evolved by many microarchitecture extensions until today, but all the extensions have binary code level backward compatibility of programs to the V60 of 1986. Its basis is 32 of 32-bit general-purpose registers with load/store architecture. It features a compressed instruction set with the most frequently used instructions mapped into 16-bit half-word.

Originally it was mainly focused on ultra-low power consumption such as 0.5 mW/MIPS. V850 has been widely used in variety of applications including: optical disk drives, hard disk drives, mobile phones, car audio and inverter compressors for air conditioners. But today, new microarchitectures are mainly toward high performance and high reliability with such as dual-lockstep redundant mechanism for automotive industry. Nowadays, V850 Family and RH850 Family are comprehensively used in a car.

Overview[]

The V850 is the trademark name for a 32-bit RISC CPU architecture for embedded microcontrollers of Renesas Electronics Corporation. It was originally developed and manufactured by NEC Corporation in the early 1990s^[1][2] (copyright mark for the microcode on the package shows ©1991) as a branch of the V800 Series^{[3]:97,PDF103} and still being evolved until today.^[4]

Its base-architecture is succeeded by the V850 Family variants named V850E, V850E1, V850ES,^[5] V850E1F, V850E2, V850E2M, V850E2S, and the RH850 Family (V850E2M, V850E2S, and V850E3) CPU cores.

Many compilers and debuggers are available from various development tool vendors.

Real-time operating systems are provided by compiler vendors.

In-circuit emulators (ICE) are provided by many vendors. Legacy prove pod based type, the JTAG based the N-Wire interface with the N-trace type, and the Nexus interface with the Aurora Trace type, are available.

Application systems[]

The first V850 CPU core was used for many DVD drives manufactured by NEC Corporation, then Sony Optiarc.^[6][7] NEC Electronics (currently Renesas Electronics) itself intensively developed application-specific standard products (ASSPs) for optical disk drives named SCOMBO® Series.^[8][9] This first generation of processor core was also used for hard disk drives manufactured by Quantum Corporation (see the photo).

The V850/xxn product line, started with V850/SA1^[10] and V850/SV1^[11] expanded its application to ultra-lo-power products such as "handy camcorders." It has main and sub internal oscillator amplifier working from 1.8 V to 3.6 V with external resonator, such as crystal and ceramic.^[10] Software STOP mode, which internal watch timer operates with 32.768 kHz sub-oscillator, consumes typically 8μA of electrical current only.^[12][13] NEC also launched V850/SB1^[14] for car audio with IEBus controller in 1998, which is ultra-low power (3.6 mW@5 V/MIPS) and ultra-low noise (EMI/EMS) 5 V product.^[15] And V850/SC1^[16] was also for "car audio".^[17] These strategical product line expansion well succeeded to enlarge the number of sold devices.

This first generation of V850 core is also used for some NEC's mobile phones.^[18] It is also used for the programmable host CPU of some small form factor "GSM/GPRS with GPS" embedded modem modules.^[19]

In the next phase, NEC targeted the automotive industry with a CAN bus controller on V850^[20] as V850/SF1 at last.^[21] The automotive industry became the main target of V850 and RH850 later on.

The V850E core targeted SoC as well as standard products,^[22][23] used for some Japanese domestic mobile phones, including Sony Mobile's and NEC's.^{[24][25][26][27][28]} V850E and V850ES are also used for air conditioning inverter compressors.^{[29][30][31][32]} At this stage, one of mass market was car audio.^[33] The V850ES core succeeded low power embedded product line,^[34] which is ISA compatible with V850E. NEC Electronics (currently, Renesas Electronics) adopt V850 CPU core for its "USB 3.0" controllers.^[35]:11

Around 2005, feasibility study for "FlexRay" controller on V850E platform had been started in several companies. Yokogawa Digital Computer (currently DTS INSIGHT) developed evaluation board named GT200; with a V850E/IA1 and a FPGA, which employs "FlexRay" controller developed by Bosch.^{[36]:78,PDF80}

The V850E2 core primary targeted automotive areas,^[37] but was also used for NEC's mobile phones.^[38]

Current V850 Family line up (including Renesas RH850 Family, based on V850E3 core, as of 2018) covers mainly automotive applications as well as "inter equipment connectivity" and "motor-control" specific MCUs. The V850 Family (based on V850E, V850ES, and V850E2 cores) and the RH850 Family (based on V850E3 core, as of 2018) are used in automotive industry comprehensively.^[39][40]

Trademark strategy[]

The V850 is a trademark but not a registered trademark.^[41] NEC once applied it to the Japan Patent Office, but it was rejected for registration,^[42][43] as it was a natural extension of the series number. But this action has enough effect to prevent some other people or organization registering it as the trademark. In addition Renesas (formerly NEC) has been using the V850X/xxn type trademark, such as V850E/MA1, for more than 20 years, because the combination of 1 alphabet with 2 numerical string can not be granted as the "registered" trademark. So, it is free to use without any registrations, and no one can blame it.

One exception is V850E/PHO3 (PHOENIX 3, or PHOENIX-FS).^{[44]:3[45]:33} Another usage of PHOENIX 3 of Renesas Electronics is the COOL PHOENIX 3, which employs ARM Cortex-M0 core.^[46] By the way, "PHOENIX 3®" is the registered trade mark name of The 3DO Company as USPTO Reg. 2,009,119.^[47]

According to the current Renesas Electronics' documentation, at least the following strings are insisted as its trademark. "V800 Series," "V850 Family," "V850/SA1," "V850/SB1," "V850/SB2," "V850/SF1," "V850/SV1," "V850E/MA1," "V850E/MA2," "V850E/IA1," "V850E/IA2," "V850E/MS1," "V850E/MS2," "V851," "V852," "V853," "V854," "V850," "V850E," and "V850ES."^[41][48]

Because the V850 trademark has been used for more than 20 years, most people does not know that the RH850 Family is based on an extension of the V850 instruction set architecture, and has backward compatibility with V850, V850E, V850ES, and V850E2. The RH850 is thought as a new face without huge legacy software assets of V850.^[49][50]

Architecture[]

Basic architecture[]

The basis of V810 and V850 is a typical general-purpose registers-based load/store architecture.^[51]:4 They have 32 of 32-bit general-purpose registers, and R0 is fixed as Zero Register which contains always zero. In V850, R30 is implicitly used by SLD/SST; 16-bit short format load/store instructions as element pointer (ep),which addressing mode comprises base address register ep and immediate operand offsets. In V850E or later microarchitectures, R3 is also implicitly used by PREPARE/DISPOSE; call stack frame creation and unwinding instructions, as stack pointer. Compilers' calling convention also uses R3 as the stack pointer.

Original V850 has simple 5-stage 1-clock pitch pipeline architecture.^{[48]:114–126} These are the significant feature of RISC; reduced instruction set computers. But object code size is about the half of that of MIPS R3000.^[51]:5 because V810 and V850 adopted 16-bit and 32-bit 2-way form length instruction format respectively,^{[48]:38–40[51]:17[52]:29–30} and the most of frequently used instructions are mapped into 16-bit half-word. In other words, 16-bit external bus width is relatively enough to provide instructions continuously without pipeline stalling, which enables low power consumption on the application board, and is suitable for mobile equipments. This concept is similar to Renesas (formerly, Hitachi) SH, ARM Thumb, and MIPS16 instruction set architectures.^[53]:4

In addition, implementing instruction set is cautiously selected. For example, function call with Jump and (Register) Link instruction,^{[48]:61[51]:20[52]:64} which save next PC on a register (fixed to R31 in V810), is also one of RISC technique to reduce the number of instructions. Return from the function can be done by jmp [Rn] (jmp [R31] in V810) instruction.^{[48]:61[51]:23[52]:65} Typical CISC processors use call & return instructions and push the next PC on their stack memory area.

But V810 and V850 have some microarchitecture differences. V810 adopts microprogram operation method for some instructions; floating-point arithmetic and bit string operations, while V850 is a hundred percent hardwired control method. As the result, for example, the first V850 does not have floating-point arithmetic and bit manipulation instruction sets; including the "find first one/zero" (search 1/0; SCH1x/SCH0x), except for "set/clr/negate a bit" (SET1/CLR1/NOT1). Those extended instruction sets are revived in V850E2x extensions.

Though V800 Series adopts RISC instruction set architecture, their assembly language is hand-coding friendly. They adopt straight forward load/store architecture.^[51]:4 In addition, the "interlock" mechanism both for the data hazards and for the branch hazards are implemented,^[51]:33–35 in other words, assembly language programmer does not need to consider any delay slots. 32 general-purpose registers provide flexibility for assembly language users. Mixture of hand-assembled codes and C language compiled codes is available by using compiler options, such as "-mno-app-regs" in Gnu Compiler Collection.^[54]

It is a little bit pity that IN instruction of V810 is removed from the first V850, which enables unsigned-load from memory-mapped I/O.^{[51]:22[52]:63}

Detailed discussion is available in some old journals.^[55][56]

Main purpose of the modification of V810 to V850 is saturation arithmetic because of customers' requestcustomers' request^{[citation needed]}.

Microarchitecture extension[]

V850 Series repeated many microarchitecture extension, but all the extensions have backward compatibility.^[57] In other words, all the old binary software assets, including written in a quarter century ago, work on every new core. In addition, each microarchitecture has circuit implementation variants and fabrication process technology variants across a quarter century.

In 1996, V853 was announced as the first 32-bit RISC microcontroller with integrated flash memory.^[58] But its maximum number of "erase and write" cycles were 16 counts.^[59]:37

In 1998, NEC strategically started to expand V850 product line both in standard and ASSP business and in ASIC and SoC business.^[60]

The first generation of V850 does not have unsigned load instructions, which was removed from V810 (as IN.H and IN.B), then it was added again as LD.HU and LD.BU in the second generation; V850E (V850E1) Series. In addition, V850E has some other user-friendly CISCy extensions such as "call table," "switch," and "prepare/dispose".^[61]:217

In 2001, NEC launched V850ES core, which is ultra-low-power series, but is ISA compatible with V850E.^[62]

Around 2001, Java Acceleration IP core for V850 seemed to be provided to some customers as SoC,^[63] but detailed information is in some patents only.^[64][65]

In 2005, NEC Electronics introduced V850E2 core as V850E2/ME3 product line with super-scalar architecture.^[66]

In 2009, NEC Electronics introduced V850E2M as dual-core with 2.56MIPS/MHz and 1.5 mW/MIPS.^[67]

In 2011, Renesas disclosed SIMD extension for V850 as V850E2H.^[57][68] As for SIMD extension, some academic studies were done.^[69] But architectural documentation for this latest product line is disclosed to automotive customers only. It can not be found on Renesas' web site.^[70] Its name seems to be changed to V850E3 or G3H. The only way to know about its instruction set is to do "reverse engineering" from the GNU Compiler Collection.

Power consumption[]

The original V810 and V850 CPU architecture is designed for ultra-low power applications.

Detailed description of the V810 is described in some journals.^[71][72]

According to Renesas's documentation, power consumption of V850ES/Jx3-L implementation is about 70% of ARM Cortex-M3.^[5]:14,15

The V810 operates at from 2.2 V to 5.5 V  with 5 V 0.8 μm (CZ4) fabrication process,^[73] which power dissipation with Dhrystone MIPS are 500 mW with 15MIPS and 40 mW with 6 MIPS at 5 V and 2.2 V, respectively. It is one of the most low power 32-bit microcontroller product in the early 1990s. This specification can be achieved both by well considered instruction set architecture and by precisely tuned 5-stage 1-clock pitch pipeline microarchitecture, both of them are the benefit of the simplified RISC feature.

This ultra-low power DNA is succeeded by V850/Sxn product line, those are still alive in mass production over 20+ years. Most of them are produced with 3.3 V with 0.35μm (UC1) fabrication process, which CPU core is precisely tuned to operate from 1.8 V to 3.6 V, working at 32.768 kHz (sub-osc.) to 16.78 MHz (main-osc.) with internal oscillator amplifier plus external resonator (crystal or ceramic).^[10] Its power dissipation is 2.7 mW/MIPS for 3.3 V 0.35 μm (UC1) fabrication process, and 3.6 mW/MIPS for 5 V 0.35 μm (CZ6) fabrication process. "Software STOP" stand-by mode for mask ROM version of V850/SA1, which internal watch timer operates at 3.3 V with 32.768 kHz sub-oscillator (I_DD6), consumes typically 8 μA electrical current only. And, Subclock normal operation mode at 3.3 V with 32.768 kHz consumes 40 μA typically, 140 μA at the maximum. (I_DD5)^{[74]:440,IDD5[13]} Its 1.8 V typical CPU operation current at 32.768 kHz might be 22 μA (40 μA ÷ 3.3 V × 1.8 V), which power dissipation should become 40 μW. It corresponds to 1.0 mW/MIPS (40 μW ÷ 0.032768 MHz ÷ 1.15 DMIPS/MHz ÷ 1000).
The V850/Sxn product line is also tuned for low noise both with EMI and with EMS. Especially, V850/SB1 and SB2 are specially tuned for low EMI noise with 5 V internal voltage regulator, which enables high sensitivity of receiving RF for car radio.^[75]:41–44

In 2011, NEC launched 3rd generation microarchitecture V850ES ultra-low-power series, which insists 1.43 mW/MIPS at operating voltage range from 2.2 V to 2.7 V,^[62] but this first implementation of V850ES microarchitecture seems to be incomplete compared with later generations of the same architecture. Its "Sub-IDLE" stand-by mode for mask ROM version of V850ES/SA2 and V850ES/SA3, those internal RTC operate at 2.5 V with 32.768 kHz sub-oscillator (I_DD6), consume typically 5 μA electrical current only. But, Subclock normal operation mode at 2.5 V with 32.768 kHz consume 40 μA typically, 100 μA at the maximum.^[76]:509 Its 2.2 V typical CPU operation current at 32.768 kHz might be 31 μA (40 μA ÷ 2.5 V × 2.2 V), which power dissipation should be 68 μW. It is about 1.7 times of V850/SA1. It corresponds to 1.6 mW/MIPS (68 μW ÷ 0.032768 MHz ÷ 1.3 DMIPS/MHz ÷ 1000).

The V850ES/JG3-L product line has ultra-low power variants, named μPD70F3792, 793 and μPD70F3841, 842. They can operate from 2.0 V to 3.6 V with 18 μA typical electrical current at 32.768 kHz,^{[77]:1002, 1041} which should be 22 μW at 2.0 V (18 μA × 2.0 V ÷ 3.3 V × 2.0 V). It corresponds to 0.52 mW/MIPS (22 μW ÷ 0.032768 MHz ÷ 1.3 DMIPS/MHz ÷ 1000). In addition, their sub-clock idle mode, with watch timer, power consumption should be typically 3.4 μW at 1.8 V (3.5 μA ÷ 3.3 V × 1.8 V × 1.8 V).^{[77]:1002, 1041}

The power consumption of NA85E2 (V850E2) core is much larger compared with NU85E (V850E1) core in the same CB-12L (UX4L)^[73][78] fabrication process. The reason is that V850E2x core has 128-bit width instruction prefetch bus and plural of Instruction Prefetch Queues,^[79]:16 while average instruction length of V800 Series is almost 16-bit.^[51]:17 It means 16 instructions are possibly fetched from the memory at once, then the memory and the prefetcher circuits sleep rest 3 to 7 cycles for dual-pipeline superscalar architecture. This gap enlarges electrical current amplitude differences. In addition, the peak electric current exceeds allowance for the voltage stabilizers of mobile gadgets. As for V850E2M CPU core, it is publicly introduced as 1.5 mW/MIPS, 3 times of former generations, although it should have advantages of new fabrication process technologies.^[67] Some mobile equipment avoids using dual-instruction execution (dual-pipeline superscalar), in other words, adopting the single-instruction (single-pipeline) execution setting to reduce electrical current amplitude differences.

Development methodology[]

Because the V850 Family^[48]:16 is developed as a branch of V800 Series,^{[3]:97,PDF103} the basic CPU architecture is inherited from V810.^[81] Instruction set architecture of the first V850 is drastically modified from that of V810, but the difference is within a patch level from GNU Compiler Collection point of view.^[82] The main purpose of this change is to implement saturation arithmetic by customers' request.

Detailed design methodology of V810 is described in a journal.^[83] V850 utilizes this design assets. But datapath logic was changed from dynamic logic to static logic, to enable 32.768 kHz real-time clock frequency operation mode.

The register-transfer level "CPU architecture design" of the V810 is developed with the Functional Description Language (FDL)^[84][85][86] on the Falcon Simulator software, those are NEC's in-house CAD tools. This methodology is the same as that of NEC V60.^[87] In the late 1980s, the Verilog HDL has not acquired by Cadence Design Systems yet.^[88] The FDL had been used until the middle of the 2000s, and was also used for the development of NEC's super-computer; named Earth Simulator.^[89]

The difference from V60 is that the circuit diagram was written with schematic editor, not of Calma, but of Mentor Graphics called NETED,^[90] a part of the Design Architect product^[91][92] on Apollo Computer's workstation, which is the most major schematic editor at that moment.^[93] It enabled to generate netlists, such as EDIF and SPICE, for LVS program like cadence's Dracula products, and NEC's in-house and Zycad netlist for logic simulation. Later on, this circuit diagram of NETED became able to generate gate-level Verilog HDL netlist for V850.

Most of the register-transfer level FDL netlist was translated to the gate-level schematic by hand, because the logic synthesis has not yet to be practical use at that moment. The FDL was divided into datapath and random logic precisely. For the datapath part, the gate-level circuit diagram enabled manually repeated artwork. On the other hand, for the random logic part, logic synthesis was tried to use for generating gate-level schematic, but it was about 10% of the total circuit.

In addition, formal verification has also not to be practical use yet, which means full regression test by dynamic logic simulation is required for gate-level netlist to compare with RTL one. For gate-level logic simulation, NEC's in-house CAD tool named V-SIM is usually used.^[94] But sometimes hardware emulator, such as Zycad LE simulation accelerator,^[95] is used for this purpose. (Refer to:.^[96]:13 In this material, the performance of Zycad LE is compared with NEC's HAL, but initial design decade differs.^[97])

Instruction opcode table[]

Each opcode (operation code) table is from User's Manual: Architecture (refer to external links.).

V810 (obsoleted)[]

• 1st map opcodes

All the opcode (operation code) of the hardwired control operation is closed within the first 16-bit half-word, more precisely, the first 7 bits from MSB. A 64-word depth ROM structure with branch condition code table is enough for decoding hardware. If a 16-bit literal operand is required, it is located in the second half-word. Microprogram control operations; bit strings and floating-point arithmetic instructions, are also located in the second 16-bit half-word. As the result, all the instructions become 16-bit and 32-bit 2 way form length. Unsigned load form memory mapped I/O is implemented as In instruction. Arithmetic and logical instructions are not fully but relatively orthogonal.

V810 does not have saturation arithmetic instructions, but 1 additional instruction in format II, such as SAT which checks flags (Overflow, Sign, Zero, and Half-word) and rewrites specified register, might be enough both for signed and unsigned, and for word and half-word, arithmetic operations.

Bit [12:10] [15:13, 9]	000	001	010	011	100	101	110	111	Format
000 X	MOV	ADD	SUB	CMP	SHL	SHR	JMP	SAR	I(R,r)
001 X	MUL	DIV	MULU	DIVU	OR	AND	XOR	NOT
010 X	MOV	ADD	SETF	CMP	SHL	SHR		SAR	II(imm5,r)
011 X	TRAP	RETI	HALT		LDSR	STSR		Bit str.
100 0 100 1	Bcond								III(disp9)
	BV	BZ/BE	BN(BS)	BLT	BNV	BNZ/BNE	BP(BNS)	BGE
	BC/BL	BNH	BR	BLE	BNC/BNL	BH	NOP	BGT
101 X	MOVEA	ADDI	JR	JAL	ORI	ANDI	XORI	MOVHI	IV/V
110 X	LD.B	LD.H		LD.W	ST.B	ST.H		ST.W	VI(disp16[R],r)
111 X	IN.B	IN.H	CAXI	IN.W	OUT.B	OUT.H	Float	OUT.W	VI/VII

"NOP" is an alias of "Non-BR".

V850 (1st Gen.)[]

• 1st map opcodes

Bit [7:5] [10:8]	000	001	010	011	100	101	110	111	Format
000	MOV	NOT	DIVH	JMP	SATSUBR	SATSUB	SATADD	MULH	I(R,r)
001	OR	XOR	AND	TST	SUBR	SUB	ADD	CMP
010	MOV	SATADD	ADD	CMP	SHR	SAR	SHL	MULH	II(imm5,r)
011	SLD.B				SST.B				IV(disp7[ep],r)
100	SLD.H				SST.H				IV(disp8[ep],r)
101	Bit[0] SLD.W / SST.W				Bit[3:0] Bcond				IV/III
110	ADDI	MOVEA	MOVHI	SATSUBI	ORI	XORI	ANDI	MULHI	VI(disp16[R],r)
111	LD.B	2nd Map	ST.B	2nd Map	JARL		Bit[15:14] SET1/NOT1 /CLR1/TST1	2nd Map Extension	V/VII/VIII

"NOP" is an alias of "MOV R0,R0".

• 2nd map opcodes

Bit [23:21]	000	001	010	011	100	101	110	111	Format
[16]	1st Map  Bit[10:5]=111001
0	LD.H								VII
1	ST.H								VII
[16]	1st Map  Bit[10:5]=111011
0	LD.W								VII
1	ST.W								VII
[26:24]	1st Map  Bit[10:5]=111111
000	SETF	LDSR	STSR	undef	SHR	SAR	SHL	undef	IX(R,r)
001	TRAP	HALT	RETI	1st Map Bit[15:13] EI/DI undef	Illegal instruction				X
01X	Illegal instruction								—
1XX	Illegal instruction								—

V850E/E1/ES[]

• 1st map opcodes

Bit [7:5] [10:8]	000	001	010	011	100	101	110	111	Format
000	—†	NOT	SWITCH	JMP	ZXB	SXB	ZXH	SXH	I(R,r0)
	MOV		DBTRAP	Bit[4] SLD.BU /SLD.HU	SATSUBR	SATSUB	SATADD	MULH	I(R0,r31) / IV
			undef						I(R0,r) / IV
			DIVH						I(R,r) / IV
001	OR	XOR	AND	TST	SUBR	SUB	ADD	CMP	I(R,r)
010	CALLT		ADD	CMP	SHR	SAR	SHL	undef	II(imm5,r0)
	MOV	SATADD						MULH	II(imm5,r)
011	SLD.B				SST.B				IV(disp7[ep],r)
100	SLD.H				SST.H				IV(disp8[ep],r)
101	Bit[0] SLD.W / SST.W				Bit[3:0] Bcond				IV/III(disp9)
110	ADDI	Bit[15:11] MOV(r=0)	Bit[15:11] DISPOSE(r=0)		ORI	XORI	ANDI	Bit[15:11] undef	VI(imm16,R,r) /VI(imm32,R) /XIII
		MOVEA	MOVHI	STASUBI				MULHI
111	LD.B	2nd Map	ST.B	2nd Map			Bit[15:14] SET1/NOT1 /CLR1/TST1	2nd Map	VII(disp16[R],r) /VIII(imm3,disp16[R])

†:"NOP" is an alias of "MOV R0,R0".

• 2nd map opcodes

Bit [23:21] [16, 26:24]	000	001	010	011	100	101	110	111	Format
	1st Map  Bit[10:5]=111001
0 XXX	LD.H								VII(disp16[R],r)
1 XXX	ST.H
	1st Map  Bit[10:5]=111011
0 XXX	LD.W								VII(disp16[R],r)
1 XXX	ST.W
	1st Map  Bit[10:5]=11110X
0 XXX	1st Map  Bit[15:11]  JR(r=0) / JARL (r≠0)								V(disp22)
1 XXX	1st Map  Bit[15:11]  PREPARE(r=0) / LD.BU								XIII/VII(disp16[R],r)
	1st Map  Bit[10:5]=111111
0 000	SETF	LDSR	STSR	undef	SHR	SAR	SHL	Bit[18:17] SET1/NOT1 CLR1/TST1	IX(R,r) IX(R,[r])
0 001	TRAP	HALT	Bit[18:17] RETI/CTRET /DBRET /undef	1st Map Bit[15:11] EI/DI undef	undef				X
0 010	SASF	Bit[17] MUL(R,r,w) /MULU(R,r,w)	Bit[17] MUL(imm9,r,w) /MULU(imm9,r,w)		Bit[17] DIVH(R,r,w) /DIVHU(R,r,W)		Bit[17] DIV(R,r,w) /DIVU(R,r,w)		IX(R,r) /XI(R,r,w) /XII(imm9,r,w)
0 011	CMOV(imm5,r,w)	CMOV(R,r,w)	Bit[18:17] BSW/BSH HSW/undef	undef	Illegal instruction				XI(c,R,r,w) /XII(c,imm5,r,w)
0 10X	Illegal instruction
1 XXX	LD.HU								VII(disp16[R],r)

List of the V800 Series CPU cores[]

CPU core	Product variants	GCC targeting options[98]	Remarks
V810[1] (1991)	V810 Family (V810, V805  V820, V821[99])	Revert patch required.[82] Available on Planet Virtual Boy. GCC named gccVB.	Obsoleted products. Unsigned & signed load. μcoded float (single)[100] 5-stage pipeline.[101] 6.7 mW/MIPS (5 V Product)
V810 (1997)	V830 Family (V830 — V832[102])	ditto	Obsoleted products. High end products. Multimedia extension.
V850 (1994)	V850 Family started V851 — V852[103] V853,[58][104][105] V854	none or -mv850	Obsoleted products. 5-stage pipeline. 4.4 mW/MIPS (5 V product)
V850 (1997)	V850/xxn (e.g. V850/SA1)	none or -mv850	Not for new developments. Signed load. 1.15 Dhrystone MIPS/MHz Ultra-low power products. 3.6 mW/MIPS (5 V product) 2.7 mW/MIPS (3.3V product) 1.0 mW/MIPS (1.8 V Sub-ope.)
V850E (1996)	V850E/MS1,[106][107] V850E/MS2	-mv850e	Not for new developments. Unsigned & signed load. 1.3 Dhrystone MIPS/MHz Standard products.
V850E1 (1999)	V850E/xxn (e.g. V850E/MA1[22]) NB85E SoC core[108][109] NU85E SoC core[108][109] (Sony's & NEC's best-cellular.)	-mv850e1 or ‑mv850es	Unsigned & signed load. N-Wire and N-Trace. Standard products. SoC Products.
V850ES (2002)	V850ES/xxn(-x) (e.g. V850ES/SA2)	-mv850es or ‑mv850e1	Unsigned & signed load. Ultra-low power products. 1.43 mW/MIPS (2.5 V product) 0.52 mW/MIPS (2.0 V Sub-ope.) Shift to V850E2S requested.
V850E1F (2005)	V850E/PH2, V850E/PH3 V850E/PHO3	Patch required (maybe).	H/W float (single precision).
V850E2 (2004)	V850E2/ME3 NA85E2 SoC core[108][110] (NEC's long-running cellular.  Sets life = 2004—2012.)	-mv850e2	Not for new developments. Many errata but still alive. Single insn. executing. (Dual-executing errata.) 7-stage pipeline. S/W float. Standard Products. SoC Products.
V850E2(v2) ()	V850E2/xxn (e.g. FIX ME) NB85E2 SoC core[108][110][111]	-mv850e2	Errata cleaned up. Dual instruction executing. 7-stage pipeline. S/W float. Standard Products. SoC Products.
V850E2M (2009)  G3	V850E2/xxn (e.g. V850E2/FG4) RH850/nxn	-mv850e2v3 and -msoft-float	S/W float. Dual instruction executing. 7-stage pipeline. 2.56 Dhrystone MIPS/MHz 1.5 mW/MIPS Multi CPU core support. Memory Protection.
V850E2R (2010)  G3R	V850E2/xxn (e.g. V850E2/MN4) RH850/nxn	-mv850e2v3	H/W float (double precision). Dual instruction executing. 7-stage pipeline. 2.56 Dhrystone MIPS/MHz Multi CPU core support. Memory Protection.
V850E2S (2011)  G3K	V850E2/xxn(-x) (e.g. V850E2/Jx4-L) (e.g. V850E2/Fx4-L) RH850xnx	-mv850e2v3 and ‑msoft‑float	S/W float. 5-stage pipeline. 1.9 Dhrystone MIPS/MHz Multi CPU core support. Memory Protection. Ultra-ultra-low power. Standard products.  V850ES/xxn pin compat. Automotive products.  Shift to RH850 requested.
V850E2H (2010)[112] V850E3 (2014)  G3M  G3MH, G3KH	RH850/xnx (e.g. RH850/C1H)	-mv850e2v4 and ‑mloop or -mv850e3v5 and ‑mloop	SIMD extension. 64-bit multiple load/store. Loop extension. H/W float (double precision). Memory Protection. Multi CPU core support. Automotive products.

^{[99][102][106][107][1][101][82][103][104][105][108][112]}

SoC solutions[]

SoC IP cores[]

In 1998, NEC started to provide V850 Family as an ASIC core to expand its ASIC business.^[113] In addition, both the V850E1 CPU core named Nx85E^[114][115] and the V850E2 CPU core named Nx85E2,^[116] respectively, are also used for expanding its standard products business with ASIC design methodology.
Various SoC utilize this core. For example, in 2003, Dotcast, Inc. used NU85E core for a set top box receiver of the digital datacasting based on (data in NTSC video^[117]) method. This core is fabricated with CB-10 0.25μm process technology which adopts 5 layered metal.^[118]:9–10

The NA85E2C core, which is developed in 1.5 V 150 nm CB-12L (UX4L)^[73][78] fabrication process, has many errata (4 pages appendix in preliminary architecture manual,^{[119]:230–233} plus 7 pages another restrictions document,^[120] as long as disclosed on the web). But it seems not to be a matter for uses, because this is long-running product.

NEC also expanded the core for 130 nm CB-130 (UX5) fabrication process^[73] cell-base IC, but it is unclear.^[121][122]

Synopsys DesignWare® IP core for V850E was once announced,^[123] but support obsoleted.^[124]

Name	Core	Cell-base series	Power supply	Node/ Gate L	Fab. proc. [73]	Freq. MHz	Type	ICE	Docs.
NA851C	V851	CB-9VX	3.3 V	350 nm	UC1	33	With peripheral		[113][125]
NA853C	V853	CB-9VX	3.3 V	350 nm	UC1	33	With peripheral		[113][126]
NA85E	V850E1	CB-9VX	3.3 V	350 nm	UC1		Bulk core		[114]
NB85E	V850E1	CB-9VX	3.3 V	350 nm	UC1	66	Bulk core	[127][128]	[113][115][129]
NB85ET	V850E1	CB-9VX	3.3 V	350 nm	UC1	66	w/ Trace I/F	[127][128]	[113][129]
NB85E	V850E1	CB-10	2.5 V	250 nm	UC2	66	Bulk core	[127][128]	[129]
NB85ET	V850E1	CB-10	2.5 V	250 nm	UC2	66	w/ Trace I/F	[127][128]	[129]
NU85EA	V850E1	CB-10VX	2.5 V	250 nm	UC2	100	Bulk core	[127][128]	[129][130][131][132]
NU85ET	V850E1	CB-10VX	2.5 V	250 nm	UC2	100	w/ Trace I/F	[127][128]	[129][130][131][132]
NDU85ETV14	V850E1	CB-12L	1.5 V	150 nm/ 130 nm	UX4L		w/ Trace I/F	[127][128]	[129][130][131]
NDU85ETVxx	V850E1	CB-12M	1.5 V	150 nm/ 130 nm	UX4M		w/ Trace I/F	[127][128]	[129][130][132]
NA85E2C	V850E2	CB-12L	1.5 V	150 nm/ 130 nm	UX4L	200	w/ Trace I/F	[110][133]	[129][132]
NB85E2C	V850E2	CB-12L	1.5 V	150 nm/ 130 nm	UX4L	200	w/ Trace I/F	[110][133]	[129][132]
	V850E2x	CB-130L	1.2 V	130 nm/ 95 nm	UX5L				[121][122] Replaced by ARM946[134][111]
—	—	CB-90L	1.2 V	90 nm/	UX6L				Replaced by ARM946.[111]
In-house	V850E2x	UX6LF	1.2 V	90 nm/	UX6LF				Renesas internal use only ???
—	—	CB-65L	1.2 V	65 nm/	UX7L				Skipped. Replaced by ARM1156.[111]
—	—	CB-55L	1.2 V	55 nm/ 50 nm	UX7LS				Skipped. Replaced by ARM Cortex-M3.
—	—	CB-40L	1.1 V	40 nm/ 40 nm	UX8L				Replaced by ARM Cortex-M4.
In-house	V850E3	RV40F	1.1 V	40 nm/ 40 nm	RV40F	320			Renesas internal use only ???

FPGA prototyping systems for SoC[]

FPGA prototyping systems for V850E1, V850E2, and V850E2M core based SoC were intensively developed to expand SoC business. They comprised a V850 CPU core LSI (TEG^†) board and "FPGA add-on"s. Most of SoC products were for mobile equipments; because the power dissipation of original V800-Series RISC architecture was much lower compared with CISC.^[1][5][101] It is the same logic as the ARM (which stands for Acorn RISC Machine) architecture is widely used for mobile gadgets.

†TEG: Test Element Group

• Renesas (NEC): COREBEST (2001)^{[135][136][137]}

• Renesas (NEC): Microssp (2006)^[111]

• Renesas (NEC): Hybrid Emulator (2007)^[138]

• Renesas (NEC): PFESiP® EP1 Evaluation Board (2008)^[139]

• Renesas (NEC): PFESiP® EP1 Evaluation Board Lite (2008)^[140]

• Renesas (NEC): PFESiP® EP3 Evaluation Board (2010): V850E2M CPU core, max. 266 MHz operation^[141]

• Xylon: logicBRICS^[142][143]

Strategic confusion[]

Around 2011–2014, Renesas Electronics expanded the V850E2 product line intensively,^[144][145] but this high-pace expansion brought much confusions. For example, some of V850E2/xxn products have already been requested to replace with RH850/xnx as of 2018.^[146] It may be, or may not be, the Product Longevity Program (PLP) point of view.^[147]

In addition, in 2012 Renesas intensively started to promote the migration from 10 years old V850ES/Jx3 product lines to newly produced V850E2/Jx4, such as for Ethernet and for USB,^[148][149] but the newer products are not listed on their web site as of 2018.^[39]

Currently, Renesas Electronics is designing "dual" lockstep system, but its predecessor NEC V60-V80 had "multiple modular" lockstep mechanism called FRM^[150] either with roll-back by "retry" or with roll-forward by "exception" for each fault detected instruction in more than 20 years ago. In addition, NEC V60-V80 has plural of implementation of UNIX System V port product releases, one of which is real-time UNIX RX/UX-832^[151] (here, 832 stands for μPD70833 (V80), not V832). Its multiprocessor implementation is called MUSTARD (A Multiprocessor Unix for Embedded Real-Time Systems), which works 8 processors at the maximum simultaneously, and their lockstep mechanism was dynamically configurable.^[152] Now, where are these technologies ?

In 2001, both NEC Corporation and Synopsys, Inc. announced they agreed to promote V850E as DesignWare® IP core.^[123][124] But as of 2018, the V850E is not listed on DesignWare libraries.^[153]

Lucent Technologies and Texas Instruments once licensed V850 and V850E SoC core, respectively,^{[154][155][156][157]} but the device can not be found.

Metrowerks once developed CodeWarrior compiler for V850, which was one of the major compiler provider of V850 in 2006.^[158] But around 2010, they discontinued it after absorption by Motorola's semiconductor sector in 1999, Freescale Semiconductor in 2003, currently NXP Semiconductors from 2015.

In 2006, NEC did not show any roadmap for the V850 Family as SoC cores.^[111] The V850E2 core, developed in 2004, described as if the last core for SoC. Instead of that, NEC introduced ARM9 (arm v5) and ARM11 (arm v6), especially for mobile equipments. But this corporate decision suddenly decreased both the net profit of LSI devices, because of the royalty for ARM and of the price competition with other ARM SoC providers. The sales revenue of the "V850 total solutions," such as development tools, real-time OS, middle-ware packages, and in-circuit emulators, also decreased. The number of sold V850 device count was also suddenly decreased because mobile equipments were the major customers of V850E1 and V850E2 cores at that moment. In 2009, NEC Electronics merged with Renesas Technology Corp.^[159]

In 2008, KMC (Kyoto Mictocomputer), which is one of the major and of the first provider of in-circuit emulator for V850 Family, announced exeGCC updating from Rel. 3 to Rel. 4,^[160] but it excluded V850 form this updating list, although PowerPC and ARM v7 was newly added. It chose SH-4A and ARM v7 instead of V850 and RH850^[161] though it had been tightly worked with NEC and Renesas Electronics.^[158]

The V850 CPU cores run uClinux,^[162] but on October 9, 2008, Linux kernel support for V850 was removed in revision 2.6.27.,^[163] because NEC stopped the maintenance.^{[164][165][166]} The person in charge of V850 Linux kernel maintenance was moved from NEC to Renesas by its merger, but his job was still compiler design and never returned to Linux kernel maintenance.^[167] This corporate decision prevent the porting possibility for Android.^[168] Regarding the Linux kernel support as of 2018, Renesas Electronics mainly focuses on SH3/SH4 and M32R processors. ^{[169][170][171][172][173]}

Target software solutions[]

Libraries[]

• Red Hat, Inc.: The Newlib for C runtime library (libc.a) and mathematical lirary (libm.a)^[174]

C runtime startup routine (crt0.S) for the latest v850e3v5 microarchitecture is available.^{[175][176][177]}

• Micro Digital Inc.: GoFast® for NEC V85x Fast Software Floating Point Library^[178]
• The GNU Compiler Collection: Software floating point^[179]
• The GNU Compiler Collection: Decimal floating point (libdecnumber.a)^[180]

Operating systems[]

Operating systems of V850 are mostly real-time operation towards.

Some of operating systems require the Memory Protection Unit (MPU) to divide tasks (or threads) strictly for reliability and safety reasons. In such cases, v850e2v3 (Gen. 3) microarchitecture or above are required.

ITRON based real-time OS[]

ITRON is an open standard specification of real-time OS (RTOS), which is major in Japan. Its specification is defined under leadership of Ken Sakamura as a part of TRON project. Initial letter I stands for "Industrial." Because ITRON specification defines interface and skeleton only, each vendor has its own taste of implementation.

• Renesas:
  • RI850MP Real-time OS for V850E2M Dual Core^[181]
  • RI850V4 V2 Real-time OS for RH850 Family^[182]
  • RI850V4 V1 Real-time OS for V850 Family^[183]

• Toppers Project: Open source TOPPERS/JSP

→ In 2003, on Rel. 1.3, V850 dedicated part bug was fixed.^[184]

→ Kernel update history^[185]

• A.I. Corporation: Toppers-Pro/xxx^[186]
• T-Engine Project: Open source T-Kernel by TRON Forum^[187]
• eSOL: eT-Kernel; Extended T-Kernel — RTOS for embedded systems^[188][189]
  • eT-Kernel/Compact, eT-Kernel/Embedded, eT-Kernel/POSIX
  • eT-Kernel Multi-Core Edition
• eCos: Open source real-time operating system

AUTOSAR, OSEK/VDX compliant real-time OS[]

AUTOSAR is an open systems architecture of operating system for automotive industry. Its purpose is to establish the standardization of ECU; Electronic Control Unit for automotive engines. AUTOSAR is an upward compatible specification of OSEK/VDX, which is also a consortium name of Germany established in 1993.

In Japan, this research was started in 2006 as a joint project by JAIST and DENSO. Renesas Electronics joined this project in 2009.^[190] Because the current RH850 and V850 processors are principally targeted at the automotive industry, it is one of a strategical product of Renesas Electronics. However, its documentation is only available in Japanese as its main customer is Toyota Motor Corporation.

• Renesas: RV850 (documents are in Japanese only)^[191]
• ETAS GmbH: RTA-OS RH850/GHS,^[192] RTA-OSEK V850E/GHS^[193]
• Mentor Graphics (formerly Accelerated Technology, Inc.): Nucleus OSEK^[194]
• HighTec EDV-Systeme GmbH: EB tresos Safety OS^[195]
• Toppers Project: Open source TOPPERS/AUTOSAR^[196]
• eSOL: eMCOS AUTOSAR profile^[197]

Other real-time OS[]

• SYSGO AG:
  • PikeOS; Embedded Virtualization Hypervisor^{[198][199][200][201]}

• eSOL:
  • eMCOS; Scalable RTOS, Distributed Microkernel Architecture, non-hypervisor type OS^[202]

• MiSPO:
  • NORTi Professional; Real-time OS + TCP/IP stack + Simulator^[203]

• SEGGER
  • embOS V850 NEC, embOS V850 Green Hills, embOS V850 IAR^{[204][205][206]}

• Wind River Systems:
  • VxWorks®: Ported in the early 1990s.^[207]
    The Tornado® IDE is stated that MP licenses has been sold via NEC in 2000, currently Renesas.^[208]

• Mentor Graphics (formerly ATI, currently A Siemens Business):
  • Nucleus PLUS^[158][209]

Linux[]

• uCLinux^[162][210]
• Linux kernel

On October 9th 2008, Linux kernel support for V850 was removed in revision 2.6.27,^[163] preventing the possibility of porting Android.^[168]

Middleware packages[]

Various middleware application softwares are provided from various vendors.

• Renesas: SD Memory Card Control^[211]

Software development tools[]

Compilers and assemblers[]

Most of the compilers, both for the V850 Family; and for the RH850 Family, are exactly the same product, and extended ISA targets are controlled by "command line options."^[212][213]

Compilers for the V850 Fmily and the RH850 Family include:

• The GNU Compiler Collection (the name is still v850 for RH850)^[214] developed both:
  • by "Red Hat, Inc." (formerly "Cygnus Solutions") as a part of the GNUPro Developers Kit^[215]
  • by "KMC (Kyoto Micro Computer)" as a part of the exeGCC^{[158][216][217]}
  • by "CyberTHOR Studios, Ltd.": Free pre-built binaries can be downloaded by registration.^[218]

• Renesas:
  • C Compiler Package for V850 Family^[219]
    • CA850 C compiler for V850E1 and V850ES (v850e1 and/or v850es, a.k.a. Gen. 1)^[220]
    • CX C compiler for V850E2M and V850E2S (v850e2v3, a.k.a. Gen. 3)
  • Software Package for V850 [SP850] for V850E2 (v850e2(v2), a.k.a. Gen. 2)^[221]
  • CC-RH C compiler package for G3, G3K(H), G3M(H)^[222]

• GHS (Green Hills Software): The Green Hills Optimizing Compilers^[223][224]

• Wind River Systems: Diab Compiler^[225][226]

• IAR Systems: Embedded Workbench^[227]

• Altium Limited: Tasking®; RENESAS RH850 SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT TOOLS^[228]

• HighTec EDV Systeme GmbH: HighTec Development Platform^[229][230]

• GAIO Technology: XASS-V Series cross development tools^{[158][231][232]}

• Metrowerks: CodeWarrior (obsoleted)^[158]

Disassemblers[]

Usually, dis-assemblers are provided as a part of C compiler or assembler packages.

e.g.)

• The GNU Binutils: objdump (v850-elf-objdump or v850-elf32-objdump)^[233]

• Radare2: Radare2 is a set of command-line programming tools for reverse engineering.^[234] Open-source code is available from GitHub repository.^[235][236]

• IDA Pro: IDA Pro is a freeware disassembler for hobby use. A plugin for V850 is available. Download site is gray for securities.^[237]

GUI based debuggers[]

GUI based program debuggers are mainly provided for debugging of compiled source codes. Usually, it is used with instruction set simulators or in-circuit emulators.

• Renesas:
  • ID850: For the combination of CA850 compiler and SM850 instruction set simulator.
  • ID850NW: For the combination of N-Wire based in-circuit emulators.
  • ID850QB: For the combination of probing-pod based emulator IEQUBE2
• NDK (Naito Densei Kogyo Co. Ltd, Group): Operation started in 1950 as subsidiary of NEC.
  • NW-V850-32
• GHS (Green Hills Software): Multi: General-purpose debugger.
• Red Hat, Inc.: Insight (GDB-Tk): GUI front-end tightly combined with GNU Debugger.
• Mentor Graphics (formerly Accelerated Technology, Inc.): code|lab Developer Suite^[238]
• By N-Wire based in-circuit emulator vendors:
  • KMC (Kyoto Microcomputer) and Midias Lab.: PARTNER^[239]
  • Sohwa & Sophia Technologies:WATCHPOINT^[240]
  • DTS INSIGHT (formerly YDC, Yokogawa Digital Computer): microVIEW-PLUS
  • Computex: CSIDE

Instruction set simulators[]

Instruction set simulator, in other words, Virtual Platform is provided to perform debugging without equipment's hardware before testing on a real machine.

• Renesas: SM850^[241]
• Open Virtual Platform: Instruction set simulator^[242]
• Synopsys: VDK for Renesas RH850 MCU^[243]

Automated code reviewers[]

Automated code reviewer, in other words, source code analyzer qualify the level of completeness of written software source code. This method is classified as dynamic code analysis and static code analysis.

Dynamic code analyzers with simulators[]

• Renesas: TW850

TW850 Performance Analysis Tuning Tool is a general utility to improve effectiveness of software.^[244]

• Renesas: AZ850

AZ850 System Performance Analyzer is a utility for RX850 real-time operating system to evaluate effectiveness of application programs.^[245]

• Gaio Technology: Coverage Master winAMS^[246]

Coverage Master winAMS is a source code coverage measurement tool.

Static code analyzers[]

• GHS (Green Hills Software): DoubleCheck ISA (Integrated Static Analysis) tool^[247]

• Rogue Wave Software, Inc: Klocwork^[248]

IDE (Integrated Development Environments)[]

IDE, Integrated Development Environment, is a framework to provide software development functions.

• Renesas: CS+ (formerly CubeSuite+)^[249]
• GHS (Green Hills Software): Multi
• Eclipse Plugins
  • GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) and GNU Debugger (GDB)
  • Wind River Workbench (formerly Tornado®)

Hardware development tools[]

ICE (In-circuit emulators)[]

Most of in-circuit emulators, such as Rnesas IE850 (formerly IECUBE2) ,^[250] can be used both for V850 Family and for RH850 Family, but may require firmware updating. The latest "trace function" of the JTAG (N-Wire^[251] ) based in-circuit emulator is replaced from the N-Trace (single-ended signaling)^[252] to the Aurora Trace (differential signaling).^[253]

Full probing pod type[]

Full probing pod type in-circuit emulator is sometimes called as full ICE or legacy ICE.

• Renesas IE850 (formerly IECUBE2)^[250]
• Naito Densei Machida Mfg. Co., Ltd. (Operation started as NEC's subsidiary.)
  • Asmis brand for custom LSIs.^[254]

ROM emulator type[]

• Lauterbach: ROM Monitor for V850^[255]:5
• KMC (Kyoto Microcomputer Co., Ltd.): PARTNER-ET II (obsoleted)^[256]

JTAG N-Wire and N-Trace type[]

N-Wire and N-Trace^{[257][252][258][259]} is a JTAG-based debugging interface specification, which circuit implementation is called TAP Controller (Test Access Port controller),^[260] primarily compiled by Philips N.V. (currently NXP Semiconductors) about a quarter century ago. But it is perhaps not disclosed publicly in its earlier stage. As the result, each semiconductor and in-circuit emulator vendor implemented similar interfaces independently. Nowadays, it is standardized by IEEE 1149.1 Working Group.^[261]

• Renesas
  • E1 Emulator:^[262] USB 2.0 based affordable compact housing equipment.
  • PCMCIA N-Wire Card IE-V850E1-CD-NW^[263]

• Naito Densei Machida Mfg. Co., Ltd. (Operation started as NEC's subsidiary.): Asmis brand.^[264]
• Midas Lab.: RTE-2000H^[265] with PARTNER^[127][239] debugger
• Lauterbach: Trace32^{[255][266][267]}
• : BlueBox iC5000 and iC5700^[268][269]
• IAR Systems
• DTS INSIGHT (formerly YDC; Yokogawa Digital Computer): adviceLUNA II^[270][271]

• Computex: PALMiCE3 V850^[272]
• Sohwa & Sophia Technologies: Universal Probe Blue^[273] with WATCHPOINT debugger^[240]
• KMC (Kyoto Microcomputer Co., Ltd.): PARTNER-Jet (obsoleted)^[274]

Nexus and Aurora trace type[]

Nexus or IEEE-ISTO 5001-2003 is a standard debugging interface for embedded systems.
Aurora is a high speed signal transfer specification. Its data link layer communications protocol is a point-to-point serial links, and physical layer is a high speed differential signaling.

• Lauterbach: Trace32: PowerTrace for NEXUS^[275]
• : BlueBox iC5000 and iC5700 (Nexus), iC6000 (Aurora)^[276][277]

Flash ROM programmers[]

Because V850 Family is developed as a single chip microcontroller, every product integrates non-volatile memory. In its first stage, it was one-time programmable or UV EPROM type, but V853, V850/xxn Series and later, it becomes flash memory type.

Gang writers (gang programmers)[]

A gang writer, or a gang programmer, is an old terminology for programmable ROM writers, or programmers. Its name origin comes from that it steals the binary code from one device, and write it to plural ones simultaneously. This read device is sometimes called as a master device. For mass production use, a dedicated attachment board with "a set of sockets," i.e. "a gang," is needed. As usual, instead of a programmed master device, an object code file can be copied from a PC via download cable, or from a USB stick. Most of gang writers accept ASCII format files such as Intel HEX and Motorola SREC, or binary format files such as ELF.

This method is suitable for mass production.

• TESSERA Technology Inc.: Stick GANG Writer^[278]

Programming service providers[]

Flash ROM programming service providers exit in most of countries.

• Minato Holdings, Inc.

Minato Holdings, Inc. (in Japanese)^[279] is a Japanese company started as an automated test equipment vendor for memory LSIs. Nowadays, it provides flash ROM programming service for various devices, including V850 and RH850, with its own made gang writers and full automatic device handler machines.

On board programming with ICE[]

Most of JTAG-based in-circuit emulators have an on board flash ROM programming function via debug port.
May be or may not be IEEE standard 1532-2002; a standard for in-system configuration of programmable components.^[280]

Direct connection via RS-232C[]

If the target board has a RS-232C connector and a transceiver (driver/receiver) IC, such as ICL32xx,^[281] for the UARTx peripheral function of V850 device, flash ROM programming with directly connected PC might be available (depends on devices^{[282]:16–24} ). The Renesas Flash Programmer software V2^[283] or V3^[284] is required.

Dedicated on board programmer[]

On board programming is also available via UARTx or CSIx+HS peripheral on V850 devices by using dedicated programmer hardware (depends on devices^{[282]:16–24}).

• Renesas: PG-FP6^[285]

Ancient PROM writers[]

To program V851^{[286]:11,14–20} and V852,^{[287]:11,14–20} an ancient PROM programmer with dedicated adapter is required.

• Renesas PG-1500 (obsoleted)

Renesas PG-1500^[288] is a programmable ROM writer compatible with 27C1001A^[289] devices, UV EPROM or OTP; one-time PROM. This writer reads silicon signature^[290][291] from each device before programming by asserting 12.5 V to A9 (address #9) terminal. It must NOT be used for modern flash ROM burning.

Gray zone tools[]

Some gray zone hacking tools exit for V850 on car dashboards.

• VVDI PROG.:
  • OBDexpress^[292]

Evaluation boards[]

• Renesas: TK-850: The naming is anachronic nostalgia of TK-80; 8080-based training kit.

See also[]

• NEC V60
• RL78
• 78K
• IEBus

References and notes[]

External links[]

• Die photo of V850 (V851 maybe) introduced 1994 by Nikkei BP (in Japanese, registration required)
• Die photo of V853 by NEC's press release (in Japanese)
• Present Status of the Embedded CPU in SoC Design, NEC Tech. Journal 1-5 pp.38-45 (Dec. 2006)
• Renesas: V850 Architecture Overview, High performance and Energy Efficient