Car stuff (public number: chedongxi)
The author | Yu Yue
Edit the | Xiao Han
In 2021, the intelligent experience represented by intelligent cockpit, intelligent driving, and intelligent vehicle control has become the core of intelligent cars, promoting the accelerated transformation of the century-old automotive industry.
Driven by the wave of intelligence, chips have become the core components of the car. In addition to the support of high-computing chip, there must also be a functional safety vehicle control chip to control the safe and stable operation of the entire system, escorting the whole life cycle of the car.
At the recent NXP Connects Asia session, NXP engineers gave a detailed introduction to the general-purpose microcontroller chip S32K3, giving the outside world a deeper understanding of the microcontroller chip. Compared with the previous generation of microcontroller chips, S32K3 has significantly improved its performance in terms of functional safety, network security, FOTA online upgrade, etc., which can make domain controllers, body control modules, area controllers and other parts more secure and stable operation, and empower smart cars to achieve more intelligent functions.
To "get to know" the S32K3 General Motors MCU, its outstanding features, design resources, and typical use cases, this video below will help you quickly get to this important information.
One, more than ten kinds of configuration to meet the vehicle domain control
In recent years, smart cars represented by Tesla have been recognized by more and more consumers, and from September to November, Tesla's monthly sales exceeded 50,000. The realization of a large number of intelligent functions is inseparable from the close cooperation of software and hardware, and chips, operating systems, and software have become the core components of the car.
At the same time, the functional safety consensus formed by the automotive industry over the years and the continuous updating of intelligent car firmware are also testing car companies and software providers, how to make smart cars safer while realizing intelligent functions?
With a desire for intelligent features and a significant increase in demand for functional safety, cybersecurity and FOTA online upgrades, NXP has introduced the latest MCU chip S32K3 series for the automotive industry.
▲NXP S32K3 at a glance
The S32K3 is a family of microcontroller chips with 12 chip configurations. This series of chips is based on the Arm Cortex-M7 core and supports ASIL B/D functional safety levels.
This family of chips is available in single-core, dual-core, triple-core, and lock-step core configurations. The single-core configuration has a single-core Arm Cortex-M7 core with a frequency of 120MHz or 160MHz. The dual-core configuration has two Cortex-M7 cores with a frequency of 160MHz. The triple-core configuration has three Cortex-M7 cores at a frequency of 240MHz.
▲S32K3 different configurations are distinguished
Chips with lock-step function are also available in single-core and dual-core configurations. The single-core lockstep configuration has a Cortex-M7 lockstep core with a frequency of 160MHz, and the dual-core lockstep configuration has a Cortex-M7 lockstep core and a Cortex-M7 core with a frequency of 240MHz.
Depending on the application scenario, NXP has configured different Flash storage, SRAM memory, I/O interface, Ethernet interface, etc. based on these CPU configurations, and realized a total of 12 different chip configurations.
Integrating so many components makes the MCU chip a chip-level computer, thus realizing the function of terminal control and achieving high performance, low power consumption, programmability, and high flexibility.
Because the S32K3 series chips have a variety of different configurations, they can be applied to almost all control units in the car, including body domain controller (BDC), body control module (BCM+), automotive area controller (zonal controller), battery management system, electronic shift system and other application scenarios.
For smart cars, the launch of the S32K3 is of great significance to the entire automotive industry. Today, automotive electrical and electronic architecture is shifting from distributed to centralized, each unit has a considerable degree of functional safety requirements, MCU is able to control the entire system safe and stable operation, accelerating the continuous iteration of the intelligent automotive industry.
Second, the security has been greatly improved With advanced packaging technology
For an automotive MCU, the most important aspects are security, packaging technology, and peripheral interfaces, and the NXP S32K3 family has significant upgrades in all three areas.
In terms of functional safety, the S32K3 family of chips meets the asIL-D level of functional safety and has a Safety library, including core self-test memory self-test and domain-based access protection (xRDC).
And S32K3 has a built-in HSE hardware encryption engine, support AES-128/192/256 encryption, SHA512 hash algorithm, and RSA4096, ECC521 and other asymmetric encryption algorithms.
▲NXP S32K3 security solution
Deng Shangchao, Senior Marketing Manager for Greater China at NXP, said: "Security will be a very important technology in the development of the automotive industry, and the HSE hardware encryption engine built into the NXP S32K3 complies with the ISO 21434 security standard and is the first in the industry to obtain this certification. ”
The HSE hardware encryption engine can effectively prevent sideband attacks, and also supports THE FOTA firmware over-the-air upgrade function, which can realize hardware A/B side switching and rollback.
In addition, the HSE hardware encryption engine provided by NXP for S32K3 does not charge developers additional fees, so it can better control costs.
In terms of packaging technology, the NXP® S32K3 has maxQFP BGA packaging technology. It is understood that NXP is the first in the industry to adopt this packaging technology, and the biggest advantage is that the packaging area is smaller. MaxQFP BGA packaging technology can reduce the chip footprint by up to 55% compared to traditional LQFP packaging technology.
▲S32K3 adopts a new packaging process
According to the chip enlargement diagram, the chip pins of the S32K3 are not extended outwards like traditional MCUs, but are contracted inward. In this way, the MCU chip occupies less space on the motherboard and can install more intelligent components in the limited space in the car.
Another key indicator of MCU is its peripheral interface, S32K3 series according to different application scenarios, expand a variety of high-speed interfaces. Among them, the S32K3 supports up to 8 CAN FD interfaces and 16 LIN interfaces, and can support up to 1 Gigabit Ethernet.
Deng Shangchao introduced that in S32K3, in addition to CAN-FD, Gigabit Ethernet, the FlexIO interface has also been strengthened, and the I3C interface has also been added. Among them, the I3C interface has a higher communication speed.
The S32K3 incorporates a number of advanced technologies and combines high performance with high security. According to the introduction, starting next year, Europe, Japan and other multinational markets will adopt ISO 21434, a new functional safety standard, NXP MCU took the lead in supporting this standard, is providing strong support for the development of smart vehicles.
Third, provide a reference board design can be used for vehicle control
In order to help more developers quickly develop and verify, NXP has built reference design boards, evaluation boards, and software development tools to help developers quickly deploy software based on the S32K3 series of chips.
Among them, the reference design board based on S32K3 integrates the SBC chip FS26 and the Ethernet switch chip SJA1105, which supports 4 Ethernet, 4 CAN-FD interfaces, 8 LIN interfaces and multiple high and low side drivers in terms of interfaces. This reference board can be used for prototyping and performance evaluation of applications such as body domain controllers, gateways, T-Box, Ethernet AVB, and more.
▲Reference design board based on S32K3
In terms of development tools, NXP built the S32 Design Studio (S32DS) in an integrated development environment based on eclipse, which can be used to develop the entire S32 family of MCUs. NXP provides free ISO26262 compliant software-driven RTDs that support AUTOSAR and non-AUTOSAR, and can easily initialize clocks, pins, and peripherals and automatically generate code through S32DS's built-in graphical configuration tool, S32 Configuration Tools (S32CT). At the same time, S32DS and S32CT also support a rich third-party software ecosystem and development toolchain.
With reference designs and development tools, NXP created three demonstration scenarios based on the S32K3, namely audio and video bridging, FOTA updates, and interior lighting applications.
▲NXP is a reference design based on the S32K3
Among them, the first application scenario is AVB (Audio Video Bridging, audio video bridging technology), a total of 3 nodes based on S32K148, these 3 boards are connected by Ethernet and S32K3 whiteboard, and each node is synchronized through the gPTP protocol.
When the intermediate node inputs audio, through the AVB protocol, the S32K3 can distribute the audio data to the nodes on both sides for synchronous playback.
The second application scenario is a FOTA update to simulate a car, with the S32K3 whiteboard at the top acting as a domain controller, and the node consisting of three S32K148 chips located below is upgraded via a CAN bus connection.
The third application scenario simulates the lighting adjustment settings in the car, such as mood lights or smart lights outside the car. NXP demonstrated an ISELED control scheme based on the S32K3, which requires only two control lines to control 4096 LED light sources, and the brightness and color can be controlled independently.
These demonstration function applications are only a small part of the S32K3 series MCU application scenarios, in the production car, S32K3 can also be applied to domain controllers, body control modules, body electronics and other application scenarios. In other words, this chip with both high performance and high security can help car companies build safer and smarter cars.
Fourth, the next generation of EE architecture is popularizing S32K3 has greater advantages
In September this year, Deng Shangchao, Senior Marketing Manager of NXP Greater China, held an open class at Zhidongxi on the theme of "Next-Generation EE Architecture and Vehicle General-Purpose MCUs". In this 40-minute open class, Deng Shangchao introduced the core information of the S32K3 series MCU in detail, and interpreted the evolution of automotive electronic and electrical architecture in the era of intelligent cars.
Deng Shangchao's speech is divided into four parts, namely the evolution of automotive electrical and electronic architecture, the new requirements and challenges of next-generation electrical and electronic architecture for MCUs, the features and advantages of NXP S32K3, and the reference design and demonstration application based on S32K3.
Click here to review the open class for free, from which you can get more dry goods information about the NXP S32K3 series MCUs.
After listening to this open class, if you are interested in the development of NXP's S32K3 series MCU, you can scan the QR code below to attend the NXP Connects Asia special series of development training courses. You can also click here to go directly to the S32K3 product detail page.