Self-Driving Cars Rattle Supply Chain


Automotive compute workloads are consolidating as carmakers push toward autonomous vehicles, but the changes necessary to make this all work are causing huge disruptions in an industry that has fine-tuned its supply chain over more than a century. Consolidation is essential for a variety of reasons, including efficiency of the computations, complexity management, and lower deployment costs. ... » read more

What’s New In Connected Autos


Connected cars and the Internet of Things go together like peanut butter and jelly. But realizing the future of autonomous vehicles will demand close attention to be paid to cybersecurity, functional-safety standards, and other critical factors. [getkc id="76" kc_name="IoT"] will advance the era of self-driving cars, which currently is dominated by Tesla Motors. At the same time, it will cha... » read more

Executive Insight: Wally Rhines


[getperson id="11694" p_name="Wally Rhines"], chairman and CEO of [getentity id="22017" e_name="Mentor Graphics"], sat down with Semiconductor Engineering to talk about changes in automotive electronics, IoT security issues, and how this affects semiconductor design. What follows are excerpts of that conversation. SE: In automotive, one of the big changes is that we are no longer dealing wit... » read more

Grappling With Auto Security


It’s a changed world under the hood of automobiles today, as vehicles become increasingly connected to infrastructure and each other. But that connectedness also is creating new security risks. Growing complexity is one piece of the problem. There are upwards of 80 electronic control units (ECUs) and more than 100 million lines of code in an average vehicle. On top of that, there are m... » read more

Making Cars Smarter


The fuel injection control unit has come a long way since 1983 when Ford Motor Co. first included a 16-bit Intel microcontroller-based fuel injection system in its 4-cylinder Escort. Today, some high end vehicles contain more than 100 microprocessors, which is mind boggling in comparison to that Escort that contained just one. To be sure, the automotive industry is a unique animal. Compared ... » read more

In-Vehicle Network Design Methodology


The complexity of in-vehicle networks puts the traditional design processes to a test. Last-minute changes, difficult verification, testing, and similar issues add to the challenges. However, changing the design paradigm to a structured engineering process can lead to better, cheaper, and easier network designs. With the right tools to support such a process, the network design itself becomes a... » read more

Round-Trip Engineering Key To AUTOSAR-Based Development


This paper discusses how round-trip engineering can be used as an iterative development process and describes interoperability between tools from Mentor and MathWorks. Model-based design has become an important component in vehicle manufacturer and supplier development processes. Electronic control units are complex in terms of functionality, connectivity, and variants; therefore automotive ... » read more

The Electrifying Side Of AUTOSAR


This paper describes a meta-model that covers specific portions of software-oriented AUTOSAR development methodology using the ECU Resource Template. Prior to actual software development, the standardized and open AUTOSAR meta-model can be used to develop an architecture. The ECU Resource Template is particularly well suited for such tasks, because it opens up the actual software-oriented AU... » read more

AUTOSAR And FlexRay


This paper describes ways tools are quickly becoming the foundation for optimization processes that help engineers design profitable automotive products more efficiently than ever before. Standards are the enabling platform for the modern computer-based design tools that have transformed industries around the world. AUTOSAR is a leading effort to bring some standardization to the software platf... » read more

Custom Versus Platform Design


The increase in [getkc id="81" kc_name="SoC"] complexity is being mirrored by a rise in complexity within the markets that drive demand for those chips. The upshot is that a push toward greater connectivity, lower power and better performance—and all for a minimal cost—has turned the pros and cons for custom design vs. platforms and superchips into a murky decision-making process. For t... » read more

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