Automotive Engineering - August 2022 - 26

Real-time processors
help drive the zonal
E/E REVOLUTION
software, one's about simplification of wiring and
hardware. Getting rid of two- or three-inch cables and
moving to redundant ethernet networks and doing
processing at the 'edges.' In some cases, some customers
will go faster to zonal, some cases they'll be
more domain with some overlay of zonal. "
End-to-end consolidation
The recent introduction of the NXP S32Z and S32E processors,
Carlson said, extends the S32 automotive platform
to provide safe, high-performance real-time processing
for safety, control and actuation applications.
As noted in a technical paper NXP shared with SAE
Media prior to our interview, the combination of the
S32Z, S32E, S32G and S32K families enables end-toend
vehicle domain and zonal architectures with common
software and tools, which is attractive to OEMs.
NXP offers a scalable, compatible real-time roadmap
that extends to 5 nm technology to design the consolidated
and software-defined vehicles of the future.
Hosting propulsion domain control, electrification,
and safety applications, NXP's scalable S32Z and S32E
processors offer gigahertz performance, system integration
and memory-expansion capabilities beyond
today's automotive microcontrollers (MCUs). The S32Z
processors target safe hosting of isolated, real-time
processing; the S32E processors are software-compatible
and add 5V analog and I/Os for actuation.
With integrated actuation support, the S32E system
solution brings developers significant cost and PCB savings,
according to NXP.
The S32Z and S32E processors have eight Arm
Cortex-R52 processor cores running up to 1 GHz with
split-lock support and dual-core lockstep Arm
Cortex-M33 processor cores for system management.
A floating-point vector digital signal processor (DSP)
supports advanced math, predictive control algorithms
and machine learning. The diverse, high-performance
processing can enable vehicle innovations
not possible with MCUs.
With " core-to-pin " hardware virtualization, the processors
isolate independent applications and implement
memory and peripheral hardware firewalls and
provide Quality of Service (QoS) assurance, Carlson
explained in the tech paper. This provides freedom
from interference and a unique fault response for each
isolated application, which allows operation to continue
without a chip reset. It is critical for ECU consolidation
and also allows parallel application development
before integration.
With up to 64 MB of integrated non-volatile memory,
as well as key LPDDR4 DRAM/flash expansion
memory, the S32Z and S32E processors support execute-in-place
(XiP), large, zero-downtime over-the-air
26 August 2022
Functionalities enabled by the S32Z and S32E processors.
Zonal control allows engineers
to streamline hardware
complexity and reduce cost.
(OTA) updates, and AUTOSAR Adaptive Platform applications. This
enables support for larger, more complex real-time applications and
future growth that is not possible with MCUs.
The S32Z and S32E processors help enable the automotive industry
to accelerate the integration of diverse real-time applications. For instance,
they can be used to implement a propulsion domain controller
which consolidates the battery management system (BMS), engine
management system (EMS), inverter control and power conversion
AUTOMOTIVE ENGINEERING
BOTH IMAGES: NXP
Automotive Engineering - August 2022

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