Flexibility added to auto infotainment designs

Flexibility added to auto infotainment designs
By Charles J. Murray, EE Times
June 24, 2002 (7:07 p.m. EST)
URL: http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20020624S0020

PARK RIDGE, Ill. — Business models for telematics developers are changing rapidly, forcing them to adjust quickly. Now, a number of chip makers are moving toward flexible new designs that could make such adjustments easier. The companies are Xilinx and a Philips-Adelante-ARM partnership.

Xilinx Inc. (San Jose, Calif.) will announce Monday (June 24) that it is rolling out a new line of programmable chips specifically for automotive infotainment systems. The new product, which includes complex programmable-logic devices (CPLDs) and field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) for GPS navigation systems, automotive DVD players and in-cabin digital processing systems, can be upgraded even after a vehicle has left a dealership.

Xilinx's move comes after a partnership was announced by Philips Electronics, Adelante Technologies and ARM Ltd. Each has signed a memorandum of understanding to develop a common system-on-chip (SoC) platform for mobile infotainment applications. Engineers from the companies said last week that the platform will employ reusable hardware and software modules that enable easy upgrade and modification. The devices are due out sometime in 2003.

The emphasis on design flexibility comes in a business climate in which several telematics and infotainment programs have failed. Wingcast LLC folded two weeks ago after its parent, Ford Motor Co., opted out. Similarly, several infotainment projects, most notably the Cadillac Infotainment System, have crashed before reaching production.

"Telematics technology is trying to take off right now and there's lots of instability and flux in the standards and the business models," said Steve Sharp, senior manager of the Silicon Solutions Marketing Group at Xilinx.

Hedge technology

Sharp said there was a greater need for flexible techn ologies, such as FPGAs, during such business conditions. "In an uncertain economy, programmable logic becomes a godsend because it allows you to try out new ideas without betting the farm," he said.

Xilinx' IQ Series of CPLDs and FPGAs would enable telematics features to be added through a mobile phone link to reconfigure an in-car system. The series includes the Spartan XL, XC9500XL, CoolRunner XPL-A3, Spartan-II, CoolRunner-II, and Spartan-IIE, all designed to work in automotive operating ranges, including temperatures from -40ºC to +125º.

Similarly, Philips engineers said last week that their partnership's SoCs would implement most functionality in software, which would make upgrading easy.

The proposed SoCs will be based on Philips' Nexperia Mobile Platform, ARM's PrimeXsys platform and Adelante's Galaxic DSP technology, which includes open DSP cores, application-specific coprocessors and C-based development tools.

The ability to integrate a traditional CPU and DSP on a common platform is expected to cut costs and provide greater flexibility, Philips engineers said. "In the PC world, people have been targeting 'super CPUs,' " said Jean-Bernard Theeten, vice president of architectures and innovation for Philips Business Unit for Mainstream Consumer Systems. "But in the automotive world, it's much more efficient to distribute tasks between a CPU and DSP because you can get equivalent performance with less resources."

Philips engineers expect the technology to be applicable to a variety of telematics business models. "The beauty of this approach is that it's usable in various types of infotainment systems," said Pascal Langlois, vice president and general manager of Philips' Global Market Segment Automotive. "Automakers need to have an architecture like this to accommodate various standards without reinventing the wheel each time."