Vehicle MCU: facing the challenge of safety intelligence, developing towards multi-core

With the rapid growth of China's automobile output, especially the sharp increase of the proportion of car output in the total automobile output, China's automobile microcontroller (MCU) market is also growing. MCU is needed in many fields such as automobile engine control, audio equipment, airbag and transmission management system. Automobile has become one of the important application markets of MCU.
Diverse application requirements
High, middle and low products are distributed separately
The automotive market has become the most important part of China's overall MCU market. On the one hand, this situation is due to the rapid increase of automobile production and automobile electronics. According to iSuppli's prediction, China's automobile production growth rate will remain at about 8% ~ 10% from 2014 to 2018, and China's annual automobile production will soon exceed 30 million. Relatively speaking, the average controller (MCU / MPU) cost per vehicle in China was about $45 in 2013, while the average controller per vehicle in the United States was about $140 in the same period. It can be seen that there is a huge growth space. On the other hand, because the application of vehicle MCU in automobile shows diversity, from simple lamp control to complex engine control and automobile remote communication, high, medium and low-end MCU can play a role in automobile. "The development trend of MCU is closely related to the demand for automotive electronic systems. Generally, we divide automotive electronic systems into four categories: body and security electronics (including doors and windows, seats, air conditioning, lights, etc.), automotive entertainment and information systems (including radio, navigator, automotive instruments, etc.), automotive chassis and safety systems (including airbag, brake, reversing safety, active safety, etc.), power system' target='_blank' style='color:#ff0000;'>power system (including engine, gearbox, etc.). Different systems have different requirements for MCU, which determines the diversity of vehicle MCU. "Yi Shenghai, marketing director of automotive microcontroller in Freescale Asia Pacific region, said.
Diversified requirements also put forward various requirements for the development of vehicle MCU. The applications of vehicle MCU are diverse, from powertrain, body, safety to new energy vehicles. Different applications have different memory, working frequency and use / installation environment of MCU. Jin Guangyi, product manager of gigadevice MCU of Zhaoyi innovation, introduced: "In powertrain applications, special attention should be paid to the high safety and reliability of the system; in safety systems, such as ADAS advanced driver assistance system, there are higher requirements for the real-time, reliability, fault-tolerant processing ability and interface ability of MCU; in body applications, such as windows and lights, there are different requirements for the communication and functional integration of MCU. In the future, the high, medium and low end of automobile MCU will It is determined by the application, and the diversity of applications determines that the vehicle MCU will also develop towards diversification. "
However, Jin Guangyi also pointed out: "in the past, we often talked about high, middle and low-end MCU, mostly referring to 32, 16 or 8-bit MCU. In recent years, with the development of semiconductor technology, the cost performance of 32-bit MCU has been greatly improved, and the automotive electronic system is also developing towards higher complexity and higher performance, and the use of 32-bit microprocessor has become a trend."
"The application trend of vehicle MCU can be summarized as follows: first, the new design of vehicle safety related systems, including power system' target='_blank' style='color:#ff0000;'>power system, chassis system, safety system and some vehicle body controllers, refer to iso26262 standard, and will adopt multi-core 32-bit processor on a large scale. Second, the vehicle entertainment system will be closely combined with consumer applications, and the corresponding hardware and The software platform will be extended to the automotive system and will be based on ARM chips, such as Freescale's i.mx6 series. We see that Google recently released the andriodauto system to promote the application of Andriod system in automotive electronics. Third, the car factory will intervene in the development of automotive platform, and AUTOSAR software architecture will promote the market to accelerate the application of 32-bit MCU. Fourth, some standard logic such as body electronics For control applications, we will see that M0 and M4 are applied on a large scale, including kinetis EA series products launched by Freescale. "Yi Shenghai concluded.
Facing security and intelligent challenges
Multinucleation trend
In the case of diversified development in the application field of vehicle MCU and different requirements for MCU in various fields, the demand for multi-core has become more and more, which has become an important development direction of MCU in the future.
"Automotive electronics is facing the challenges of energy conservation, safety and intelligence of contemporary globalization. Behind each challenge is the innovation of automotive semiconductors, and each innovation of automotive electronics should be realized through the operation and control function of MCU. Compared with the requirements for MCU application in other fields, the requirements for MCU in automotive control system are more stringent, including both speed and performance requirements and protection To meet the reliability and safety requirements of the system, at the same time, its application environment is extremely harsh and its working conditions are extremely complex. Multi-core MCU is an effective response plan, "Jin Guangyi said, "In order to meet the special requirements of the new generation of automotive electronic systems for computing speed, performance and safety, Zhaoyi innovatively launched a new Cortex-M3 core architecture MCU, which can complete multi task and complex computing functions."
Yi Shenghai said: "the design of MCU structure generally reflects the market demand and cost (chip and software) The homogeneous and heterogeneous multi-core of automobile MCU are based on different situations. If a system has several functions and the functional requirements are similar to the chip processing capacity, the homogeneous system will be better; however, if a system has two different functions, one for image processing and the other for HMI control, the heterogeneous structure will have more advantages.

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