Automotive infotainment targeted by ARM-based SoC
Renesas Electronics and Renesas Mobilehave announced a new member of the R-Car Series of automotive Systems-on-Chip (SoCs). Rated at over more than 25,000 DMIPS, the R-Car H2 provides high performance and state-of-the-art 3D graphics capabilities for high-end multimedia and navigation automotive systems. The R-Car H2 hosts an ARM CortexA-15 quad-core configuration running an additional ARM CortexA-7 quad-core – the industry’s first implementation of a Quad ARM Cortex A15 and the big.LITTLE processing technique in an automotive SoC, Renesas says.
Powerful media hardware accelerators enable features such as four-stream HD 1080p video en/decoding including Blu-Ray support at 60 frames per second, image/voice recognition and high-resolution 3D graphics with almost no CPU load. Hardware modules also execute the display content improvements needed for human-machine interface (HMI)/navigation data in parallel to Movie/DVD handling.
The R-Car H2 also features the Imagination Technologies PowerVR Series6 G6400 Graphics Processing Unit (GPU), again claimed by Renesas as the first implementation of the GPU into an automotive SoC, for advanced 3D graphics capability. The GPU is ready to not only support open technologies like OpenGL ES 2.0, but also the OpenGL ES 3.0 and OpenCL standards.
Renesas’ IMP-X4 core, implemented in R-Car H2 as an optional feature, provides real-time image processing that enables developers to support augmented reality. In order to fully benefit from the IMP-X4 core, the R-Car H2 also supports up to four independent input camera channels, allowing easy implementations of 360º camera views and image recognition, just an example of the possible driver assistance functions. OpenCV support for IMP-X4 will also be offered.
The efficient bus architecture of the R-Car H2 includes dedicated CPU and IP caches, enabling Renesas to reduce the DDR3 memory bandwidth consumption. In order to ensure adequate memory bandwidth, the R-Car H2 is equipped with two independent DDR3-1600 32-bit interfaces. This allows for much more efficient access to different content simultaneously, compared to a single 64-bit DDR interface. Mobile-product design experience has contributed to power consumption reductions, and the automotive SoCs feature effective power optimisation and handling.
R-Car H2 integrates advanced automotive interfaces like Ethernet AVB, MOST-150 and CAN and mass storage interfaces like SATA, USB3.0/2.0, SDcard and PCI Express for system expansion. As a device option, the GPS baseband engine handles all modern navigation standards. Further integration includes a 24-bit DSP for codec, high-quality audio processing with hardware sample rate converters and audio mixing. The Renesas Ethernet AVB solution achieves the fullest implementation of Ethernet AVB on the market, offering the Full Ethernet AVB specification and meeting the specification requirement demands of the automotive market.
The chips have an ecosystem including board support packages (BSPs), middleware, development environment and partner solutions, which enables quick prototyping and drastic reduction of high-end product development costs.
The R-Car H2’s multi-core architecture allows customers to implement real-time features, such as quick-boot, backup camera support, and media processing, parallel to the execution of advanced operating systems such as QNX Neutrino RTOS, Windows Embedded Automotive or Linux. Renesas continuous close collaboration with industry-leading Operating System vendors means that the customers’ toolboxes are full with the features and development tools they need to rapidly create and bring to market differentiated high-performance products.
Samples of the Renesas R-Car H2 SoC are available in a 831-pin FCBGA (flip chip ball grid array) package. Mass production is scheduled for mid-2014.
Renesas, www.renesas.eu
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