Multi-domain SoC in 3nm process technology for ADAS, IVI, and gateway applications

Components Multi-domain SoC in 3nm process technology for ADAS, IVI, and gateway applications

2024-11-28 From Stefanie Eckardt | Translated by AI 3 min Reading Time

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Renesas Electronics unveiled the R-Car X5H SoC at electronica 2024. The first component of the new R-Car X5 series is based on 3nm process technology and integrates multiple automotive applications such as ADAS, in-vehicle infotainment, and gateway applications on a single chip.

Renesas Electronics introduced the R-Car X5H SoC, the first component of the new R-Car X5 series, at electronica 2024.(Image: Renesas Electronics) — Renesas Electronics introduced the R-Car X5H SoC, the first component of the new R-Car X5 series, at electronica 2024.
(Image: Renesas Electronics)

The new R-Car X5H was developed to address the growing complexity in the development of software-defined vehicles. This involves optimizing computing power, power consumption, costs, and hardware and software integration, while simultaneously ensuring vehicle safety. By closely linking application processing, real-time processing, GPU and AI computing power, large displays, and sensor interfaces on a single chip, the new component and its future product family aim to significantly advance applications for automated driving, IVI, and gateways.

The new product family achieves AI acceleration of up to 400 TOPS and GPU performance of up to 4 TFLOPS. It includes a total of 32 Arm Cortex-A720AE CPU cores for application processing, delivering performance of over 1,000,000 DMIPS. Six Arm Cortex-R52 dual-lockstep CPU cores achieve performance of over 60,000 DMIPS and support ASIL-D functions without external MCUs. The new SoC series is manufactured in a process node by TSMC. It achieves top-tier CPU performance and reduces power consumption by 30 to 35 percent compared to chips developed for a 5-nm process node, resulting in lower total system costs as no additional cooling solutions are required.

Higher computing power through chiplet extensions

Renesas offers the option to increase computing power through chiplet extensions. By combining a 400-TOPS on-chip NPU with an external NPU via a chiplet extension, AI processing performance can be increased three to four times, for example. The R-Car X5H utilizes the standard Die-to-Die connection Universal Chiplet Interconnect Express (UCle) and APIs for seamless chiplet integration. This ensures better interoperability with other components in a multi-die system, even if they are not chips from the Japanese semiconductor manufacturer. This design approach allows for the combination of various functions and custom system designs, including the option for future upgrades in different vehicle platforms.

Hardware-based isolation of safety features

While moving towards electric, automated, connected, and software-defined vehicles (SDV), more power and functionality are needed, yet functional safety remains the top priority. Unlike other SoCs that rely on software-based isolation, the R-Car X5H SoC offers hardware-based Freedom-from-Interference technology (FFI). This hardware implementation securely separates safety-critical functions, like brake-by-wire, from non-critical functions. Safety-critical functions can be assigned to their own redundant domains, each with its own independent CPU core, memory, and interfaces. This avoids potentially severe vehicle malfunctions in the event of hardware or software errors in another domain. The R-Car X5H also features QoS management, which determines computation load priorities and allocates the necessary processing resources in real-time.

Scalability

The SoC supports various processor requirements—from zonal control units to central high-end computers, which can be used in entry-level to premium vehicles. The new unified hardware architecture based on Arm CPU cores ensures that the same software and tools from the Renesas 64-bit SoC lineup and future automotive products in the 32-bit MCU area can be reused with R-Car Gen 5. As part of the R-Car family, the company expands its vehicle control portfolio with a new R-Car MCU series, also supported by Arm. Renesas plans to introduce this new 32-bit MCU series with enhanced security for body and chassis applications in the first quarter of 2025.

R-Car Open Access platform for SDV development

The new component and all future product family members are designed to accelerate the development of software-defined vehicles. To this end, hardware and software are integrated on a comprehensive development platform. The newly introduced SDV platform R-Car Open Access (RoX) provides hardware, operating systems, software, and tools needed for rapid vehicle development with functionally safe and continuous software updates. RoX enables the virtual development of diverse, scalable computing solutions. This includes ADAS, IVI, gateway and cross-domain integration systems, as well as body control, domain, and zonal control systems.

Start of production

Samples of the R-Car X5H will be delivered to select customers in the first half of 2025. The semiconductor manufacturer plans to start mass production in the second half of 2027. (se)

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