The cornerstone of software-defined cars: highly reliable and high-performance chips
Latest update time：2021-06-30
Reads：
01
Car Automotive chips are the foundation of software-defined cars
Software is rapidly reshaping the automotive industry: In recent years, the four waves of disruption in the industry—autonomous driving, connectivity, electrification, and sharing—all rely heavily on software. OEMs, suppliers and startups across the industry hope to seize the initiative in this new software-driven value chain.
As vehicle functions become more and more complex, in the era of software-defined cars, the amount and complexity of software code in cars is growing rapidly. The amount of code in high-end cars is actually much more than that of PCs and smartphone operating systems. According to statistics from an organization, the code amount of the common smartphone operating system Android is 130,000 lines, and the PC operating system Windows Vista is 50 million lines. Cars can have up to 100 million lines of code. In addition, the NXP official website predicts that the amount of code in cars is expected to grow exponentially from 2015 to 2025, with an average annual compound growth rate of approximately 21%.
As the saying goes: A good horse deserves a good saddle. Although our vehicle functions are becoming more and more abundant, and the software is becoming more and more complex, how to ensure that the software runs safely, efficiently and reliably? There is no doubt that we must rely on increasingly powerful hardware, and the core of the hardware is automotive chips.
In 2021, veterans in the automotive industry, whether in Tier 1 or OEMs, have clearly felt the pressure brought by the shortage of automotive chips. The current global automotive
"
core
shortage
"
has become the current situation in the automotive industry. At the same time, affected by the epidemic, global consumers have greater demand for chips for mobile electronic devices, which has also led to
the intensification of the
"
core shortage
"
in the automotive industry
. With the shortage of chips and their importance to smart cars, chips have increasingly become a competitive bargaining chip for car companies.
This time, global car manufacturers are
stuck with
"
chips
"
, and major car companies have begun to pay more attention to the issue of chip supply security. Due to the continued shortage of chips, major car companies including BMW, Daimler, Honda, etc. have successively announced Latest shutdown plans.
To this end, major car companies are also interested in cooperating directly or indirectly with chip manufacturers to jointly develop and develop automotive chips. But before that, most car companies still had to endure
"
core shortage
"
through. Daimler revealed that its second-quarter production will decline due to chip shortages. It is expected that the global chip shortage may ease by this summer, but it may not be completely resolved until
2022
.
02
Introduction to automotive chips
For a long time, the development of automotive electronics has been much slower than that of
the
IT
industry. Smart devices have changed our lifestyles in the past few years. In contrast, automotive electronics seems less up-to-date and out of touch with daily life. digital life. There are two very important differences between consumer electronics and automotive electronics: automotive electronics has strict safety and reliability requirements that are incomparable to those of consumer electronics. After all, automotive electronics is a major matter related to personal safety, and any negligence will cause serious consequences. quality issues and the safety of passengers’ lives and property. Therefore, automotive electronics cannot pursue ever-changing new ways of playing like
the
IT
industry all day long, but should prioritize safety and reliability. In the past many years, vehicle functions were not as complex as they are today. , on the premise of meeting functions, security and reliability,
8-
bit,
16-
bit and
32-
bit single-core processors can be satisfied.
However, in recent years, the pace of the new four modernizations of automobiles has become unstoppable, and has also brought profound changes to automobile electronics. The combination of the increase in vehicle functional requirements and
the penetration of
IT
technology has made it impossible for single-core processors with limited computing power to meet the current needs. and future requirements, the automotive industry increasingly needs chips with stronger performance to support them.
Chip is the collective name for semiconductor component products, also known as integrated circuit (
IC, Integrated Circuit
). Automotive chips are mainly divided into three categories: functional chips (
MCU
,
MicrocontrollerUnit
), power semiconductors, and sensors.
Functional chip:
mainly
refers to processor and controller chips.
The vehicle control system mainly includes body electronic systems, vehicle motion systems, powertrain systems, infotainment systems, autonomous driving systems, etc. There are many sub-functions under these systems, and there is a control behind each sub-function. There will be a functional chip inside the controller.
Autonomous driving chips are essentially functional chips. They are a type of high-computing power chip produced with the development of smart cars. Currently, commercially available autonomous driving chips are basically in the advanced driving assistance system stage, capable of achieving
L1-L2
level assisted driving. Some claim to be able to achieve
L3-
level functions, targeting
L4-L5
fully autonomous driving and fully autonomous driving chips for large-scale commercial use. There is still distance.
Autonomous driving chips are becoming a new battlefield for many parties. Consumer electronics chip giants such as Intel, Nvidia, Qualcomm, and
AMD
, innovative companies such as Horizon and Black Sesame, technology companies such as Huawei and Baidu, and car companies represented by Tesla are all competing. Laying out one after another.
算力和能效比是自动驾驶芯片最主要的评价指标，
L1-L2
级需要的芯片算力小于
10 TOPS
，
L3
级需要的算力为
30-60 TOPS
，
L4
级需要的芯片算力大于
100 TOPS
，
L5
级需要的算力为
500-1000 TOPS
。
功率半导体：
主要负责功率转换，多用于电源和接口，例如电动车用的
IGBT
功率芯片，以及可以广泛使用在模拟电路与数字电路的场效晶体管
MOSFET
等。
传感器：
则主要用于各种雷达、安全气囊、胎压检测等。
说了上面的自动驾驶芯片相关供应商，在动力域汽车电子领域，芯片供应商主要有这么几位大佬：英飞凌（
Infineon
）、恩智浦（
NXP
）、意法半导体（
ST
）、瑞萨（
Renesas
）、等。
03
高性能芯片对多核的支持
首先汽车软件越来越需要多核处理器的支持，原因主要有如下几点。
1
、汽车电子电器架构和整车功能越来越复杂，需要计算能力更强大的硬件来支持越来越复杂的软件功能，随着
ADAS
、自动驾驶等应用场景的加入及未来域集中甚至中央计算机的
E/E
架构变更，多核系统的需求将更加明显。
2
、并行计算的需求：例如某些功能的输出计算需要多个输入要素在相同时间片内执行并在同一时刻输入到该功能模块。
3
、相同时间片内多个任务的串行计算需求：例如多个功能需要在相同的时间内被串行执行。
4
、系统响应能力的需求：例如对于那些对时间要求特别高的中断处理需要单独在一个核上运行，而周期性任务则放到另外一个核上运行，从而提高整个系统的响应能力。
多核处理器从内核架构上主要分为： 同构和异构处理器两类 。
异构多核架构
：
MCU
由多个不同架构的内核构成，例如恩智浦
LPC4370
（一颗
CM4 Arm® Cortex®-M4
和两颗
Cortex®- M0
）。在异构多核处理器中，一般都会使用高配主内核
+
低配小内核的配置（主内核用于执行批量应用处理），较小的内核被称为协处理器（主要用于处理一些不太复杂的操作，比如持续在
I/O
上发送数据；因此即使有第二个内核存在，由于它的作用是支持或补充主内核，所以被称为协处理器）。另外ARM内核架构的汽车芯片将在未来智能座舱、智能驾驶等领域会得到越来越多的应用，下面是NXP的一款用于视觉处理的一款S32V芯片：
同构多核架构
：即在
MCU
中采用多个相类似架构的内核。多个核可同步或异步运行相同代码和应用。同构多核架构中有一个锁步模式，而这个锁步模式是保证安全应用的关键。最近几年很多汽车芯片厂商都已经推出了多核处理器，以汽车动力域采用的一些主流芯片为例：
1 、英飞凌（ Infineon ）
Infineon AURIX TC27x 系列处理器具有三个 32 位 TriCore 架构内核，其具有两个支持锁步的内核（ 1.6P 和 1.6E ）及一个非锁步核（ 1.6P ）。所谓的 1.6P 是一种超标量核，一般 TC 1.6P 核的性能比 TC 1.6E 高出 10~20% 。
该处理器支持应用的领域主要是底盘安全及动力总成。
2
、恩智浦（
NXP
）
The NXP
MPC5777M
multi-core processor has three
32-
bit
Tri-Core
cores, which have two
computing cores
e200z7
clocked at
300MHz
(one lockstep core and one non-lockstep core) and one
peripheral core
e200z4
clocked at
200MHz
.
In short, all major automotive electronic chip suppliers have their own multi-core system solutions, so I won’t go into details here. Domain controllers, which have attracted more and more attention in recent years, hope to integrate the functions of multiple controllers on one hardware, thereby simplifying the vehicle E/E architecture and reducing costs. The following is an application example of a domain controller :
The picture above shows Xinchi Technology’s multi-core heterogeneous computing architecture. One chip integrates
different structures including ARM Cortex-A55, PowerVR GPU, Cortex-R5, CV engine, packet processing engine, Slim AI engine and Voice engine.
Efficient communication of data can be achieved with minimal loss.
In addition, its full range of single-chip solutions for smart cockpits: X9. It can create a one-core ten-screen cockpit driving experience, integrating central control entertainment navigation, full LCD virtual instrument, voice recognition, co-pilot entertainment, independent rear entertainment, head-up display HUD, 360 surround view and many other functions. Its powerful performance is thus It can be seen.
04
High-performance chips support information security
Safety is an eternal topic in every field, and automobiles are no exception. In recent years, automobile safety has received more and more attention from users and developers. There are also many elements of safety. For example, users may be concerned about the safety of their cars. Privacy and security when using the system, personal safety when turning on
auxiliary driving functions such as
ACC
, etc.; from the perspective of a siege lion, we will pay attention to and consider the reliability and security of the vehicle's
E/E
architecture, hardware and software, such as the reliability and safety of the hardware.
EMC
and random failures, software function design and communication security inside and outside the controller, etc. As an important part of the system goal, each security element is only to ensure the reliability and safety of the entire vehicle, thereby protecting the user's information security and personal safety.
As software becomes increasingly complex and the number of in-vehicle systems and sensors steadily increases, the communication between in-vehicle systems grows exponentially and password protection must be strengthened. This protection can be achieved through the classic Automotive Open System Architecture for Real Time (AUTOSAR). Even when resources are scarce, a hardware security module (HSM) with the right firmware installed is a future-proof technology that can be used to authenticate your system passwords. A hardware security module (HSM) is a stand-alone microcontroller connected to the host system bus by a firewall. An HSM typically has its protected memory (RAM), a dedicated flash area for program code and data, and its peripherals such as timers, hardware accelerators for certain cryptographic algorithms, or generators for true random numbers. It has access to all of the host's hardware. Enables secure, authenticated boot or host monitoring of systems at runtime. Dedicated data flash memory can be used to store secret keys that are not freely accessible to the host system. This means that the host can request the HSM to perform cryptographic operations without the keys ever leaving the HMS. However, the special advantage of HSM in this regard is that it is freely programmable. As a standalone microcontroller, the HSM is capable of running any program code optimized for the current use case. This makes its security requirements higher than that of a simple coprocessor.
Managing access permissions to internal and external devices on the chip as well as encryption and decryption of communications
through
HSM
will improve information security.
Xinchi Technology's chip has a built-in independent HSM with independent power supply, independent clock and independent peripheral interface. It is designed with the highest functional safety standards in the system and can be used as a series of safety control systems.
05
Functional safety support and development challenges of high-performance chips
On the one hand, the application of high-performance multi-core chips is to improve computing power, and on the other hand, multi-core can achieve disassembly of different
ASIL
levels. However,
it is not easy to achieve the functional safety defined by
ISO26262
in a multi-core system
.
To achieve certain functional safety design goals on a multi-core system will have a certain impact on both hardware and software.
In terms of hardware, it may be
the lock-step concept of multi-core processors:
In lock-step mode, the two cores execute the same code respectively, and independent comparators compare the calculation results of the two cores and generate a
trap
. The subsequent processing depends on
the hardware conditions and safety architecture of
the ECU
. The hardware design must ensure that
the ECU
is still in a safe state after
a trap
occurs
(the addition of lock-step cores is not a multi-core architecture to improve computing power, but a way to ensure system security. Multi-core mechanism, personal understanding).
On the software side, developers assign upper-layer software modules to
the OS Application
defined in
AUTOSAR
based on the software's parallelizability and related security architecture
. This allocation process corresponds to
the
"
partition
"
defined in
ISO26262
, and this process enables
the ECU
to operate without causing mutual interference in internal areas.
In multi-core
ECU
,
OS Application
is assigned to different processor cores. From a developer's perspective, the primary purpose of partitioning is not program parallelism or program safety: the primary priority is to ensure that
OS
applications do not interfere with each other. For this purpose, it is particularly necessary to introduce runtime monitoring
and
avoid tampering with security-related memory contents.
In short, highly reliable and high-performance automotive chips not only provide rich peripherals, but also provide a foundation for complex automotive software development and applications
. Although the core chip technology has been monopolized by foreign countries for a long time, many domestic companies, such as Horizon and Xinchi Technology, have achieved outstanding innovations in research and development and good market performance, giving us every reason to believe in intelligent technology. The evolution of the wave will be faster and more exciting than expected.
References: Tianfeng Securities, McKinsey, Vector, EB and other information
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