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Volume 49 (Nov 08, 2005)
NEC Electronics dashboard solutions
Dashboard: At the heart of driving information
When you're out driving, you probably find yourself spending a lot of time monitoring road conditions, keeping an eye on traffic signals and looking from front to back and side to side to maintain ample distance between you and the other cars on the road. And more likely than not, you check the driving information on your dashboard many times. The dashboard of today not only includes speedometers, engine tachometers, odometers, clocks, fuel gauges, oil temperature gauges, heat indicators and voltage indicators, but also multi-function displays containing information about the position of the gear shift, the presence or absence of malfunctions, and the status of the parking brake and headlights (Figure 1). These microcontroller-controlled meters and displays enable drivers to grasp driving conditions accurately and at a glance.
NEC Electronics' development environment solutions for dashboard
Microcontrollers control the motors for meters and displays used in dashboards. Due to recent increases in the amount of information content displayed, display sizes have also increased, and microcontrollers have had to be added in some cases for display control purposes. Designers therefore have found themselves having to use several microcontrollers, thereby making the software development process more complicated and leading to higher costs. To solve these problems, NEC Electronics has developed two single-chip microcontrollers capable of controlling the motors for meters and displays. Equipped with a high-performance 32-bit V850ES™ CPU core, the V850ES/DJ2™ microcontroller incorporates six motor drivers and the V850ES/DG2™ four, enabling several meters to be operated simultaneously. In addition, the V850ES/DJ2 has a DMA (Note 1) function that makes it possible to directly transfer data without using the main CPU, which means that large amounts of display data can be processed at high speeds with little burden on the CPU. Moreover, the V850ES/DJ2 comes with a special port for use with the CAN vehicle network, thereby enabling the meters to be connected with CAN. Since all of these functions are incorporated in a single chip, customers are able to realize low-cost and high-performance dashboard designs.
To demonstrate how these microcontrollers work, we developed a demonstration board equipped with the V850ES/DJ2 that shows how just one microcontroller can be used to control six meters and a liquid crystal display (LCD). In addition, we provide development environment solutions to simplify the development process (Figure 2).
The ever-increasing expansion of dashboard use
As stated at the beginning of this article, dashboards no longer merely display gauges and indicator lights, but also a vast array of information. Moreover, as the amount of information displayed on meters increases, methods to increase visibility by displaying all of this information on LCDs are being considered. To display each analog meter and indicator light graphically, screen size must be increased and color must be used. In addition, functions that employ a variety of sound effects that appeal to a person's sense of hearing and can be used in conjunction with displays are also currently under consideration.
To realize the new functions demanded as dashboard evolve, microcontrollers must be capable of processing large amounts of data at high speeds. NEC Electronics has developed products that meet the needs of our customers in the U.S. and European markets, and has gained a favorable reputation with many in-vehicle product manufacturers. As for our dashboard microcontroller roadmap, we will continue to work to develop products that use cutting-edge processes, have both high-speed capabilities and large memory capacities, and can be used in conjunction with LCDs (Figure 3). Furthermore, we plan to capitalize on our achievements in the U.S. and European markets to aggressively expand our activities in Japan, China and the rest of the world.
NEC Electronics will continue to bolster its efforts to provide in-vehicle development environment solutions and services.
(Note 1) DMA stands for direct memory access. This is a data transfer technique in which data is exchanged between peripheral devices and memory without using the CPU. Since the CPU is not involved in the transfer of data, the speed of the entire system increases.
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