Renesas Electronics Corporation, a premier supplier of advanced semiconductor solutions, on April 4, 2017, announced its new software packages for the R-Car automotive computing platform to improve security and safety capabilities for next-generation connected cars. The software packages implement embedded optimized virtualization technology that enables embedded systems to have -in a single system- security features that protect the car from external threats, and functional safety features that assure continued safe operation even in the event of failures.
Safety is a primary concern for the automotive industry. Automotive systems including cloud-connected systems, instrument cluster, and driver monitoring are expanding in number and scale year by year. In addition, the demand for new user experience, such as information sharing and control linked with other systems over multi displays, is increasing. These trends have led to increasing expectations for the integration of automotive systems. For instrument cluster and driver monitoring, support for functional safety is particularly required to safely handle the car even in the event of failures.
Security is another key concern. For example, automotive cyber security becomes mission critical as modern cars are advancing towards connected cars that allow applications to be downloaded from the open cloud to update and upgrade the software in the car. Increased security functions are required to protect the car from malicious attacks over the network and to secure personal information handled in the cloud. Applications for cloud services need to be separated from instrument cluster to avoid important information from being lost or destroyed.
At the same time, the car cockpit environment is poised to evolve to an automotive computing system that integrates multiple systems to provide a more consistent and more advanced user experience. This creates new integration challenges for OEMs and Tier 1s to achieve, in a single system, both the security and the functional safety features that were previously implemented individually in multiple systems.
To resolve these issues, Renesas offers several new software packages that enable the integration of multiple automotive systems, including systems that require security and functional safety features, in a single R-Car platform:
- Virtualization Packagethat allows multiple operating systems (OS) to be integrated simultaneously and for multiple different applications to operate on a single R-Car system for enhanced system integration.
- Security Packagethat allows the implementation of secure booting and secure updates among other functions to meet changing security requirements.
- Functional Safety Packagethat enables control of the safety mechanisms (hardware IPs) included in the R-Car system-on-chip (SoC).
Renesas, along with its partner companies, is making these software packages available to system manufacturers now, and plans to expand them in the future.
