EPN Automotive Electronics Blog

Threewise triple MCU

In modern automotive systems, various bus systems, rigid safety demands and the need for high performance at low power have to be balanced. While there are many specialized automotive chips like microcontrollers and SoCs around, this  is an area where the general trend towards higher integration finally makes sense.

Building a standard

It's a good thing when an official industry standard is constantly being developed and thus filled with life. However, when the standard evolves fast, there's always the problem that some implementers remain at an older version. This can lead to fragmentation, and the »standard« isn't a standard anymore.

Cars and more

In terms of software development, AUTOSAR sets rather good practices. Actually, it has a few advantages over general purpose SW development standards with its coverage of the full development cycle easily the most important. Unfortunately, the AUTOSAR development partnership isn’t too fond of allowing the software architecture outside of the automotive market. Now, they start opening up. A bit.

Safer ECUs

The ISO 26262 functional safety standard for road vehicles poses various problems for component manufacturers as well as for system integrators. Luckily, not all control units in a car are that safety critical, but the ones that need to comply require extensive checking and testing during all stages of product development.

Darwin in automotive testing

For processes that are controlled by embedded systems, more and more software is needed in vehicles that has to be put through its paces in order to ensure safety and reliability. In a modern car, this software often contains more than ten million lines of software code. The difficulty is to define meaningful tests to eliminate as many potential failure causes as possible already in the software test phase. An evolutionary approach might provide the right test for the right situation.

Testing ECUs

Modern cars consist of dozens of electronic control units. This modular architecture facilitates development and manufacturing as well as after-sales service. Even testing isn’t too hard, except when it comes to interactions between the modules. At that point, functional testing needs to go hand in hand with communications analysis.

Automotive development package

With an upgrade for its simulation and prototyping tools, dSpace promises new features for development and testing engineers.

The charging net

While finding a place where to charge an electric car can still be quite a challenge, Bosch Software Innovations already aims at the next level of infrastructure: A comprehensive open business platform for eMobility.

BMW and PSA: Joint Venture for Hybrid Engines

The ongoing love affair between BMW Group and PSA Peugeot Citroën has just become more intense: Both car giants agreed to deepen their close relationship by signing a Joint Venture agreement at 50 %. The agreement known as BMW Peugeot Citroën Electrification focuses on developing and producing hybrid components.

Extensible prototyping

While automotive electronics makes driving much more comfortable, »electronified« modern cars also have shorter lifetime and design time than »oldtimers«. So, the new car with the heatable cigarette lighter won’t last for 20+ years like but we won’t have to wait 10 years for the successor. Development tools need to develop even faster…