Infineon Technologies AG (FSE: IFX / OTCQX: IFNNY) expanded its safe automated driving collaboration with NVIDIA, announcing that its AURIX TC3xx series automotive microcontroller (MCU) will be used in the NVIDIA DRIVE Pegasus AI car computing platform.Thesupercomputer for autonomous vehiclesmeets the requirements of Level 5 autonomous driving as defined by the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE).
Infineon now supplies the safety microcontroller,safety power supply IC, and selected vehicle communication interfaceICs for several NVIDIA DRIVE systems. The devicessupport increasing levels of autonomous driving capability,ranging from auto cruise functionality to auto chauffeur and full autonomy.
Development time reduced by up to 40 percent
The collaboration enables users of the platform to access AURIX capabilities through an AUTOSAR-compliant software stack. This potentially allows re-use of higher-level application code and can likely reduce development time by 20 percent to 40 percent compared to traditional platforms.
“Infineon has a 30+ year history of delivering the safety and reliability technology that is critical at all levels of autonomous driving. We make cars safer, smarter and greener,” said Ritesh Tyagi, Head of the Silicon Valley Automotive Innovation Center (SVAIC) at Infineon.“Collaboration between Infineon and NVIDIA through multiple generations of DRIVEcar computersprovides the automotive industry with a consistent platform for development and market deployment across all classes of driver-assist and fully autonomous systems.”
“NVIDIA’s DRIVE AI vehicle supercomputers deliver up to 100-times more computational horsepower than the most advanced cars on the road today,” said Gary Hicok, Senior Vice President of Hardware Development at NVIDIA. “Their multiple levels of redundancy and safety functionality demand a proven, widely deployed safety architecture, like that of the AURIX TC3xx series.”
Infineonmicrocontrollerspower automated driving
Themulticore microcontrollers help the platform meet the highest possible functional safety standard (ISO 26262 ASIL-D) for Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) and self-driving systems. The AURIX TC3xx series offers significant upgrades in performance compared to the previous generation to enable scalable and efficient platforms.Key features of the AURIX microcontrollers are relevant to implementing both ADASand Automated Driving (AD) functionality.That includesadvanced support for ASIL-D applicationsassisted by more than 3,000 DMIPS of safety computational performance, self-test mechanisms in hardware for logic and memory, integrated monitoring, and redundant peripherals. In addition, the latest generation of AURIX offers a greater level of integration, enhancements inhigh-speed connectivity interfaces, and advanced security capabilities.
The microcontrollerhandles akeylayer of the safety supervision framework of the platform and performs monitoring functions for the SoC. In turn, AURIXplays an important role for DRIVEPegasus to achieve system-level ASIL-D safety.It also manages the power-up sequence and monitoring of warning signals for the self-driving platform. In addition, the AURIX microcontroller provides the mainin-vehicle interfaces for multiple network communication channels to the system, such as CANFD, Gigabit Ethernet, and FlexRay.
Information on the AURIX microcontrollers and Infineon’s automotive product portfolio is available at www.infineon.com/aurix and at www.infineon.com/automotive.
