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MicroSys, Direct Insights sign NXP SoM deal

MicroSys, Direct Insights sign NXP SoM deal

Business news |
By Nick Flaherty



Direct Insights has signed a partnership agreement with MicroSys Electronics in Germany for system on modules (SoM) using NXP’s latest automotive processors.

“There are a couple of really sound reasons behind this SoM partnership with MicroSys,” David Pashley, co-founder and CEO of Direct Insights tells eeNews Europe.

“If you look at embedded designs now the minority are done in house for a number of reasons. The main reason is complexity, as the volume sof hundreds or thousands doesn’t support this. So you have two choices, to go to a systems integrator such as Bytesnap or to provide a ready made platform with the system on module.”

“We focus on things that need an operating system, now a lot of our customers use QNX with a focus on safety over the last few years and that has led us to the relationship with MicroSys,” he said.

The deal covers designs using the NXP S32G and Layerscape SoMs in the UK running Linux for telematics and automotive applications. Direct Insight already works with the i.MX range of processors from NXP.

MicroSys has a focus on embedded designs using its own SoM and single board computer formats rather than specifications such as SMARC, Ina Schindler, Managing Director at MicroSys tells eeNews Europe. “For example we designed a module with 18 CAN-FD interfaces,” she said.

An increasing number of customers are working on functional safety designs using the ISO26262 specification in automotive or SIL3 for railways, she says.

“Transportation infrastructure is probably our biggest market, then medical, industrial and desktop instrumentation and we are trying increasingly to get more involved in the vehicle in the vehicle with QNX and Microsys,” said Pashley.

“We are coming from i.MX designs that are dealing with high quantities of data and the Layerscape processors are architected for moving large amounts of data and the software defined vehicle is one obvious place for this,” he added.

One areas of interest is AI in transportation. The MicroSys boards support multiple modules using the Hailo-8 AI accelerator chip where NXP also has a partnership.

“Our niche is customers with high performance needs with not that many pieces per year so they can benefit from the scalability,” said Schindler: “Direct Insight is the perfect partner for MicroSys. We need technically-competent, application-focused design channels which are capable of supporting customers’ complex and evolving requirements. Direct Insight has over 20 years experience supporting markets in the UK, Ireland and further afield and we are delighted to be working together.”

MicroSys is the European owner of the OS9 operating system which runs on the various SoM designs and boards, but the company also supports QNX and Yocto Linux.

“I expect there to be some opportunities around QNX but this is only a small part of the OS landscape,” said Pashley. “Our principle fallback in Linux which will encompass the majority of the opportunities  We don’t see it as a big thing to re-invent the wheel so we are relying on MicroSys and NXP for the drivers. We do some specialist stuff for people who have tighter memory constraints.”

www.directinsights.com; www.microsys.com

 

 

 

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