Why does hardware become more important in the era of software-defined cars?

"The automotive industry is undergoing earth-shaking changes." Henri Ardevol, executive vice president and general manager of the automotive processor business at NXP Semiconductors, recently told the media. "Electrification, digitalization and cloud connectivity are the three main trends in future automobile development."

Ardevol said that in addition to technology, the automotive industry is also undergoing changes in the value chain. The linear value chain from Tier3, Tier2, Tier1 to OEM is transitioning to a triangular value chain, with the three vertices including OEM, Tier1 and technology suppliers. "NXP's positioning is to gradually transform into one end of the triangle - a technology partner." Ardevol said.

As a China expert, Ardevol is well aware of the fact that the best wine is always the best. In March 2023, he and Jens Hinrichsen, executive vice president and general manager of NXP Semiconductors’ advanced analog business, came to China to visit customers. The short stay also made them more convinced of their judgment on the future evolution trend of automobiles-all of which can be summarized as the important change of software-defined cars.

The demand for hardware in the era of software-defined cars continues to increase

The reason why Ardevol makes this judgment is that automotive electronic components have more and more functions and the codes are becoming more and more complex. The method of separating software and hardware must be used to simplify the entire design chain. OEMs, Tier1s, etc. are all transforming into the era of software-defined cars. For example, Bosch currently has about 35,000 software developers, accounting for about 50% of the total R&D headcount. NXP is also increasing its investment in software talents, and the entire automotive business unit is moving in the direction of adapting to software development.

The emergence of software-defined cars means that the role of software in car development continues to increase, but this also brings higher requirements to hardware, which not only supports software definition in terms of performance, but also requires adaptation in more aspects.

Specifically, NXP is focusing on innovation in multiple directions to adapt to future software-defined cars. This includes providing scalable hardware and software platforms, supporting digital twins, enabling wireless updates during the vehicle life cycle, providing software services and system-level expertise, and an extensive ecological cooperation system.

To this end, NXP has been improving the S32 platform, which is a series of microcontroller and processor platforms for automotive and industrial applications, including general-purpose processors, network processors, real-time processors, radar processors and other products, with Software reuse is achieved within and across functional domains, while the performance is 10 times that of NXP’s previous automotive device series, and it supports zero downtime, complete rollback options, and a safety engine to adapt to OTA requirements.

In addition, NXP has also launched many innovative features to improve the level of software definition. For example, working with Electra to use digital twin technology to achieve real-time prediction and management of BMS can more effectively enhance battery performance and improve battery health. 

According to the reporter’s understanding, NXP has adopted Synopsys’ Virtualizer technology, which allows the development team to start software development several months before the hardware development is completed, thereby deploying the entire automotive software and hardware system before testing, so as to better implement the Verify vehicle software in a virtual test environment. This technology can be more conducive to the development model of separation of software and hardware, and support the software development workflow that continues to shift left.

Controller under domain architecture

As ECUs have more and more functions, in order to reduce the complexity of development and verification, reduce data transfer costs, and reduce wiring harnesses, more and more facts have proven that the domain control architecture is a good architecture for software-defined cars.

NXP's S32G gateway processor can support multiple virtual and isolated MCUs in one MPU. Software developers can allocate resources in the MPU at will to meet the requirements of real-time, functional safety, information security, reliability and quality assurance. core requirements for other elements. Compared with software virtualization, hardware isolation can achieve better security. Ardevol said some customers can even run up to 16 applications on a single domain controller.

A further evolution of the domain control architecture is the regional control architecture. Compared with domain controllers, regional controllers can have more powerful computing power to process complex software and centrally access more sensors. In the future, with the advent of 5nm products, the controller is expected to evolve into a processor or even a vehicle-mounted computer, and the computing power will be further improved.

Further overall solutions

Software-defined cars also mean that hardware can be presented in a modular or integrated manner. To this end, Jens Hinrichsen said that in addition to power semiconductors, NXP can provide all components including processors and peripherals, providing a complete system-level solution.

At the same time, NXP is also paying attention to the broader market related to electric vehicles, including fast charging, energy storage, etc. NXP has corresponding solutions.

Summarize

As a major supplier in automotive processors, automotive networks and other fields, NXP has achieved significant growth in this wave of automotive intelligence.

As Ardevol said, NXP pioneered the transition from MCUs to MPUs in the automotive market many years ago. In the future, NXP will focus on the automotive electronics revolution led by 5nm processors and provide more software on top of the chip to meet all the requirements of the software-defined automotive era.

It is worth noting that Chinese customers have left a deep impression on Ardevol during the migration process of software-defined cars. "Chinese customers are the last to adopt S32G processors, but they are the first to achieve mass production and introduction into the market." Ardevol said. "China is very important to NXP, so we need to invest in the Chinese market on a large scale, and we need to invest before the market and before our competitors."