Automotive
Chip designer ARM is taking a leading role in developing hardware for functional safety required in areas such as automotive, healthcare and robotics.
Building on its range of R-series processors specifically designed for real-time software processing that is a cornerstone of safety and high degrees of dependability, the company recently announced the Cortex-R52 processor.
In safety-critical scenarios, typically found in automotive, computer-controlled advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) work behind the scenes to help the driver remain safe. Collision detection, parking, and, moving forwards, fully-autonomous driving will all be controlled by computers, and the hardware and software needs to work together to react to ever-changing conditions. This is where a processor such as the Cortex-R52 comes in.
Built on the low-power, high-performance heritage of mobile chip design, the Cortex-R52 is able to switch between tasks up to 14x faster than the previous Cortex-R5. Such extra performance is much-needed on new cars primarily because there is so much computation to do. Modern cars require lots of performance not just from the engine, but also the supporting hardware that controls many of their automated systems often hidden from the user.
It's no surprise that Cortex-R52 adheres to the latest safety standards, namely IEC 61508 SIL 3 and ISO 26262 ASIL D, making it an easy-to-implement choice for the burgeoning safety-critical market that extends to related industries such as aviation, transportation, healthcare... and the part played by robotics in that field in particular.
It's an important market for ARM to crack as it looks to expand its footprint outside of its traditional mobile domain. The safety-critical market, in reference to automotive, remains dominated by proprietary systems designed by carmakers who haven't used ARM technology in this way before. ARM hopes that it can bring the ubiquity and partnership strategy to bear on the automotive market, too, thus speeding up the pace of innovation, just as it has ably demonstrated in mobile.
Renault, for instance, sees the merit in collaborative design. It has launched an open automotive platform combining a simple, economic mechanical base with open-source software. Based on the presently-available Twizy car, it is hoped that, in concert with ARM, the new vehicle can be used as a base for designing cheaper electric cars in the future, modifiable in many ways to suit the market and intended purpose.
Security and reliability are the two key attributes for Cortex-R series processors. These presently constitute the fewest familial licenses from the Cortex range. If ARM can truly break into the automotive market, expect the license and revenue share from Cortex-R to increase quickly in the next few years.
The Cortex-R52 may well be the most important processor launched by the company in the last year because it fills an obvious gap in its segment-wide portfolio. Having a leading-edge real-time-optimised processor is a must, and ARM appears to be at the head of the pack.
