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Volume 71 (Sep 10, 2007)

NEC Electronics Activities in Automotive: AUTOSAR

Increasingly complex automotive electrical and electronic control systems are being implemented for controlling engines, brakes, and other functions to enhance vehicle safety and environmental friendliness. Particularly in the development of the Electronic Control Unit (ECU), the software component has become enormously important, so efficient development of software has emerged as a critical issue. To meet this challenge, the AUTOSAR (Automotive Open System Architecture) partnership was formed, a standardization consortium consisting of vehicle manufacturers, ECU suppliers, microcontroller (LSI) vendors and software development tool vendors. Since NEC Electronics joined the consortium as a premium member, the company has become actively involved in standardization work to build a common platform for software development.

We asked Peter Jakobsson with NEC Electronics Europe about the activities in AUTOSAR.

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What is your mission in AUTOSAR?

In order to understand the mission it is important to understand what AUOTSAR is and what role it will play in future vehicle electric/electronic architectures. AUTOSAR is a standardized software platform with the goal of being used within all electric/electronic applications within a vehicle network. The AUTOSAR software platform makes it possible to write generic application software without considering the microcontroller it will run on. By achieving this, AUTOSAR will bring a quantum step forwards in the way automotive electronics are developed. AUTOSAR will enable the complete vehicle industry to re-use software not only between car platforms at one vehicle manufacturer but also between different vehicle manufacturers.

My mission or actually NEC Electronics' mission is to make sure that NEC Electronics offer the best combination of hardware and AUTOSAR software available in the market. Two years ago, when the AUTOSAR activities started, we formulated the mission as follows:
NEC ELECTRONICS shall provide Semiconductor Solutions that not only support, but enhance the implementation of AUTOSAR compatible software

I think that this mission still holds true and that its importance will increase rapidly in the next few years. I am convinced that the importance of system thinking (system = hardware + software) will be one of the key competencies for NEC Electronics in order to be successful in the automotive market.

You encountered some hardships for AUTOSAR, didn't you?

In any innovative and new development there are hurdles to jump. This is normal and it is a part of our daily life. Developing the AUTOSAR standard and developing the first version of our AUTOSAR software is not an exception.
There are a few hurdles or hardships that have been subject of discussion since the beginning of the AUTOSAR development.

These issues are still as important as ever but the doubt that the AUTOSAR standard will be able to deal with all these aspects has drastically decreased. Experience gained from the first AUTOSAR implementations gives a strong indication that the standard is now ready for mass production.

What are the features of our solution?

NEC Electronics has the strategy to develop the microcontroller dependant parts of the AUTOSAR software stack. Our solution is a fully featured one and has an optimized device driver software layer, also known as a microcontroller abstraction layer, that is suitable for our devices.

In order to live up to the high NEC Electronics quality standards this software is developed using the best software processes that have CMMI certification.

Only the device driver layer of the AUTOSAR stack is not enough for our customers to build an ECU. Our customers need a complete AUTOSAR software stack. To satisfy this need, NEC Electronics are working together with the most renowned software suppliers in the automotive industry. By integrating our AUTOSAR MCAL software into their software stack NEC Electronics can together with its partners offer a complete solution.

The most important reason why this strategy was chosen is that that NEC Electronics can contribute the most in the hardware software parts. NEC Electronics know its microcontroller better than any one else, and, therefore, NEC Electronics are the best suited to write the device dependant software parts.

How will customers benefit from AUTOSAR?

The main benefit for our customers is the re-use of software. Our customers will be able to re-use their microcontroller independent software parts for different vehicle platforms and different vehicle manufacturers. This is the principle motivation behind the creation of the AUTOSAR software standard.

Besides optimized and high quality software our customers will be able to reduce their development costs by purchasing the MCAL software from NEC Electronics. NEC Electronics will develop the device drivers once and sell it to many customers. This way NEC Electronics can distribute the cost and hence keep the price low for each of our customers.

What are future goals for AUTOSAR and your activities?

NEC Electronics is currently focusing on a limited number of devices (V850ES/Fx3 and V850E/PHO3). In the future NEC Electronics plan to have AUTOSAR software support for the complete line-up of 32-bit automotive devices.

On the basis of our dialogues with our customers, we predict that most/Most of them and the various vehicle manufactures will introduce AUTOSAR in products whose mass production is scheduled to start in 2010 - 2012. This means that AUTOSAR systems are still in a pre-development stage and that the real product development will start from early next year. As a consequence, NEC Electronics must establish AUTOSAR software as a product that is available worldwide. In order to do so, NEC Electronics need to improve almost all aspects of handling software as a product, starting with support and extending to the sales to supply chain. My goal is to make sure that this preparation is finished when large-scale development of AUTOSAR based systems starts.

Any additional comments will be helpful for me.

NEC Electronics is currently co-operating with many of the world's largest vehicle manufacturers and ECU suppliers in the area of AUTOSAR. At the moment NEC Electronics are in the forefront of this development. As an example of our position in this area NEC Electronics was a part of the world's first AUTOSAR solution that was integrated in a vehicle.

NEC is one of the first, if not the first, microcontroller supplier worldwide to officially launch an AUTOSAR software product. Since February this year it is possible to purchase AUTOSAR MCAL software for V850ES/Fx3 microcontrollers from NEC Electronics.

Since m/o August this software package is also available for V850E/PHO3 microcontrollers.
Our aim is that NEC Electronics will be the first microcontroller supplier with an AUTOSAR solution going in mass production.

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