Advanced platforms for next-generation automotive cockpits

As a part of the relationship, Green Hills is working with Qualcomm Technologies to feature the Green Hills INTEGRITY real-time operating system (RTOS), INTEGRITY Multivisor secure virtualisation, and integrated MULTI ASIL D-qualified software development environment as part of the new Qualcomm Snapdragon Automotive Cockpit Platforms. Designed with a focus on production-readiness and consolidation of diverse safety and security requirements, customers can quickly and confidently design, develop and deploy these high performance, complex next-generation automotive systems.

Green Hills Software’s INTEGRITY RTOS and Multivisor virtualisation solutions are the certified software foundation that safely and securely combine open-source Linux and Android infotainment environments with critical vehicle functions such as vehicle gateways, instrument clusters, telltales, advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) and heads-up displays (HUD), which in many cases, require adherence and certification to the ISO 26262 automotive safety standards.

The Snapdragon Automotive Cockpit Platforms are the third-generation automotive platforms from Qualcomm Technologies. Designed to support future intelligent automotive cockpits to meet rich intuitive user experiences and stringent automotive industry standards, the third-generation Snapdragon Automotive Cockpit Platforms are engineered with immersive graphics, multimedia, computer vision and artificial intelligence capabilities and feature truly heterogeneous computing capabilities.

It also leverages the multicore Qualcomm Artificial Intelligence (AI) Engine, Qualcomm Spectra Image Signal Processor (ISP), fourth generation Qualcomm Kryo Central Processing Units (CPU), Qualcomm Hexagon DSP and sixth-generation Qualcomm Adreno Visual Subsystem. The Snapdragon Automotive Cockpit Platforms also feature the Qualcomm Secure Processing Unit (SPU), engineered to help protect personal and vehicle data, and Qualcomm Vision Enhanced Precise Positioning solution’s camera sensors and computer vision capabilities to enable differentiated use-cases on lane-level navigation and crowdsourcing of drive data for building high definition map layers.

The new Snapdragon Automotive Cockpit Platforms also provide fully scalable architecture with differentiated experiences, leveraging the same software architecture and framework allowing consumers to enjoy a harmonised user experience independent of the vehicle tier while leveraging the same software framework.

Nakul Duggal, Senior Vice President of Product Management, Qualcomm Technologies, stated: “Today’s integrated cockpits mandate a scalable software architecture to safely and securely combine Linux and Android infotainment functions with critical vehicle functions that require automotive-grade safety and certification. When used with a third-generation Snapdragon Automotive Cockpit Platform, the breakthrough INTEGRITY RTOS and Multivisor virtualisation solution allows global Tier 1s and OEMs to overcome this challenge. We look forward to further strengthening our relationship with Green Hills as we share the commitment to offer the highest levels of safety-conscious and security-rich, performance solutions that define the future of high-performance, scalable vehicle cockpits.”

The INTEGRITY RTOS architecture was designed from the beginning for use in the most life-critical, mission-critical embedded systems. Its impenetrable separation partitions help software teams to safely and securely partition software running at different levels of criticality on the same multicore processor while guaranteeing the system resources required for the proper execution of applications. 

When Linux or Android environments are added, the INTEGRITY Multivisor secure virtualisation safely runs these high-level operating systems in safe, secure partitions, assuring freedom-from-interference while achieving near native execution speeds, secure and flexible inter-process communications and the option to share GPU or other critical acceleration resources on the Snapdragon Automotive platform.

Dan Mender, Vice President, Business Development, Green Hills Software, explained: “The third-generation Snapdragon Automotive Cockpit Platforms are based on an impressive high-performance multicore automotive grade system-on-chip. With customers already deploying our solution built with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 820A platform, we are pleased to be using these highly advanced automotive platforms with our safe and secure software solutions for inclusion in potentially millions of vehicles starting in 2020. The INTEGRITY RTOS with Multivisor secure virtualisation provides the essential software foundation to protect and partition the complex, mixed-criticality integrated cockpit software components.”