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1005EN-Automotive.doc
Keywords: automotive, telematics
@head:The Automotive “World of Tomorrow” Is Brought to You by Today’s EDA
@text:Where are the flying cars? My young son asked me that question the other day. He
then explained, “You know, those flying cars of the future. Isn’t this the future?” He had
seen pictures of futuristic cars as depicted by visionaries of the 1950s.
I explained that those futuristic cars weren’t quite here yet, but that didn’t mean that
today’s cars lack some pretty cool technology. Few automotive visionaries of the past
could have foreseen such marvels as the capability to “see” without headlights. Yet
infrared-thermal-imaging systems do just that. They allow the driver to see beyond the
glare of oncoming vehicles to avoid pedestrians or animals that cross the road at night.
Did the engineers of yesteryear envision cars being navigated via global-positioningsatellite (GPS) systems? Did they foresee theater-quality audio-visual entertainment
systems inside cars? How about voice-activated communication devices that let us plug
our wireless mobile phones directly into the car’s audio system? Today’s cars are indeed
a marvel of electronic and mechanical engineering, thanks to the innovations wrought by
the EDA and semiconductor professions.
With electronics approaching 40% of a vehicle’s cost in the next five years, is it any
wonder that the automotive industry has shown interest in the tools and methodologies of
the semicon community? A real challenge arises when the increase in overall electronic
systems is coupled with a decrease in the automotive design cycle. That cycle sits at two
years now, but it’s projected to be one year in 2010. To meet this shrinking time-tomarket and related decreasing cost requirements, the auto industry has turned to the
established chip-design and embedded communities for help.
Surprisingly, several EDA-related firms already have significant automotive-domain
expertise. Mentor Graphics, for example, has developed automotive electronic-design
technology for the last 20 years. Aside from tools for system modeling and prototyping,
the company has created embedded-software applications, board-level designs, and even
wiring harnesses.
This company has been providing component-level design and test tools--embedded
software, printed-circuit boards (PCBs), and harnesses--to the auto industry for some
time. Just recently, Mentor also has been moving up the famous “V” diagram life-cycle
model to provide system-level design and test tools for vehicle network support and
electrical distribution systems. Now, the company is using its expertise to provide
functional design and architectural optimization. In fact, Magneti Marelli just adopted
Mentor’s new mixed-signal and simulation environment, called SystemVision, in
addition to other tools like ModelSim and HDL Designer.
But engine-control and system-safety electronics make up only a portion of today’s
automotive electronics system. The worldwide market for semiconductors in car audio,
infotainment, and other driver-information/telematics systems is predicted to grow by $7
billion by 2010. That same year, FPGA and CPLD sales in automotive applications are
forecasted to grow 94% from $240.3 to $449 million. These programmable chips will be
used for the following applications: video processing for in-car cameras, information
processing for multiple display systems from GPS to DVDs, and gateway-interface
control for a variety of automotive-networking standards.
The significance of these growth numbers hasn’t been lost on the major FPGA companies.
Xilinx, for example, recently announced that its automotive family of programmable
devices would be expanded to include its entire line of inexpensive Spartan 3Es and its
high-performance Virtex-4 line of FPGAs. Qualifying these product families to meet the
numerous automotive standards is no small feat. Clearly, the task is justified by this
market’s growth potential.
EDA tools and FPGAs only represent part of the automotive semiconductor market. A
variety of chip vendors have been supporting the automotive sector for a long time.
Consider Texas Instruments’ ARM7 family of MCUs. They’ve captured 65% of the
chassis and braking market and 40% of the airbag market.
To cope with decreasing design-cycle time, IP and reuse-enabling technology also have
become popular with automotive-electronic designers. Companies like Mentor, Xilinx,
and TI all have IP available for automotive designs. But several new startups have
entered the game as well. One of them is IPExtreme, which has partnered with Freescale
to make the FlexRay automotive-communication bus-controller IP available to the market.
The “world of tomorrow” has arrived for the automotive industry--albeit sans the winged
chariots. Its arrival is due in large measure to the help of the EDA and semicon
community. Though I’ve highlighted just a few of the contributors, most of the other
major players (e.g., Synopsys, Cadence, Altera, Analog Devices, and more) continue to
expand into the growing automotive sector.