I’ve been at the inaugural Renesas DevCon in San Diego this week, and it’s been very interesting so far. The Renesas folks have been gracious hosts, and being in San Diego is always … well, pretty much perfect. And there have been a few surprises.

I met a long-time friend from my previous Motorola field sales life who now works for Renesas, and he commented that “we’re the biggest company you’ve probably never heard of.” While I’d heard of them, and that’s somewhat true in North America due to the OEM nature of the business, it’s clear from the attendees here that there is a core audience that is very familiar with them.

Like the fellow from New Hampshire who introduced himself to me just before the keynote. He pulled a small unit out of his bag, consisting of a Gumstix module running Red Hat Linux, mounted on a small board he’d designed with five Renesas R8C MCUs. This board controls his furnace at home. Overkill? He says it’s paid for itself in energy savings. It coordinates the furnace operation with his wood stove, provides a family-friendly user interface on an LCD panel, and even ties in local weather forecasts on that display.

Or the folks I met at lunch today who talked about the 38 Renesas MCUs in the Lexus LS460, and MCUs in commercial refrigerators, and vehicle tracking systems they were working on.

Or the guys that were very engaged in the motor control session, and the LCD session, and the embedded USB session, and Mark Overgaard’s (another long-time friend) system management session, and in other technical sessions I’ve seen here.

Or the discussions I’ve had with Renesas marketing teams on secure MCUs, and faster RX600 MCUs, and ideas for direct-drive LCDs, and more. Or talking to their alliance partners in the exhibit hall with more ideas.

I can tell you that Renesas is ready to take its success in Japan (and more broadly Asia, where they’re comfortably #1 in MCUs) worldwide. They’ve moved from #5 to #2 in MCUs in North America in a few short years, and are taking steps with channels, alliances, and universities to continue to build their presence. And there are ideas coming, like embedded MRAM memory, that promise to transform the MCU space.

And I can tell you that the 300 or so attendees at this event get it. They’re very technical, very experienced, and quite creative from the sound of things. Most have been using Renesas parts - from ancestors Hitachi and Mitsubishi - for a couple of decades. When prompted, they’ll tell you things like why the DTC block is the best, or how bulletproof these MCUs are in EMI (like my new friend’s furnace and its electrostatic air filter, yikes).

I’d say this event has been a success, and am looking forward to future Renesas events. Nice work.