Arm's new auto tech and AI vehicle compute roadmap

Vehicle electronics are becoming more complex, so to innovate at pace and achieve faster time to market, a fundamental rethink of product development is needed.

Traditional automotive development cycles are linear: processor IP is delivered, silicon development begins, and when hardware becomes available around two years later, software developers start to build solutions on top of it.

To enable the automotive industry to accelerate this development cycle, Arm and their ecosystem are unveiling a new suite of hardware and software platforms designed to meet the performance, safety, and AI demands of modern vehicles. With new virtual platforms and software solutions made available alongside leading-edge hardware IP from day one, Arm can save the industry up to two years of development time because they can immediately start innovating without having to wait for silicon to be in production.

Looking ahead, and extending from Arm’s strength in the infrastructure market, Arm is investing in a roadmap of Arm Compute Subsystems (CSS) for automotive, designed to enable partners to move faster, be more agile, and achieve better TCO.

More AI and software in the car will save lives and deliver new experiences, but needs faster development cycles and leading-edge hardware foundations

The driving experience is being redefined by a surge of software needs and AI advances, which will ultimately save lives. To achieve this, more compute is needed, faster.

Advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) need more AI-optimised compute for vehicle, pedestrian, and object detection, and safety-critical decision making for braking and steering. Meanwhile, software continues to define the in-vehicle experience.

Arm is seeing increasing demand for richer, more sophisticated user interfaces along with over-the-air (OTA) updates leading to smoother, safer, and more seamless driver and passenger experiences – whether that’s updated navigation and car information or the latest entertainment for passengers.

To keep up with the demand for more advanced vehicle systems, software and hardware must be enabled simultaneously.

That’s why Arm are announcing

New virtual platforms: along with leading cloud and virtual platform providers, Arm is launching a range of automotive virtual prototyping offerings based on the latest Arm Automotive Enhanced (AE) IP. These are designed to enable automotive developers to work ahead of physical silicon being available. Initial partners delivering virtual platforms and cloud solutions include AWS, Cadence, Corellium, Siemens, and others, with a roadmap of additional platforms planned for this year and beyond.

New software solutions: Arm are collaborating with the ecosystem to enable full stack software solutions on these new virtual platforms. These cover applications across the vehicle along with foundational automotive software developed in partnership with industry leaders including Autoware Foundation, BlackBerry QNX, Elektrobit, Kernkonzept, Sensory, Tata Technologies, Vector and more. This software collaboration builds on the work already being done through the SOAFEE initiative.

New next-generation hardware foundations, purpose-built for automotive: for the first time, leading-edge technologies are being added to the Arm AE IP portfolio based on the Armv9 architecture, including the expertise and server-class performance leadership of our Arm Neoverse platform:

• Arm Neoverse V3AE: bringing Neoverse technology to the automotive sector for the first time, delivering server-class performance for AI-accelerated autonomous and ADAS workloads
• Arm’s first v9-based Cortex-A processors purpose-built for automotive:

• Arm Cortex-A720AE: delivering sustained performance with SoC design flexibility for a broad range of software-defined vehicle (SDV) applications
• Arm Cortex-A520AE: providing power efficiency with functional safety features to scale across automotive use cases

• Arm Cortex-R82AE: Arm’s highest-ever performing real-time processor for functional safety
• Arm Mali-C720AE: a configurable ISP optimised for the most demanding computer and human vision use cases

• A range of configurable system IP to enable the Arm silicon ecosystem to deliver scalable, high-performance automotive SoCs

Arm’s safety-enabled hardware foundations are pervasive across the full range of vehicle applications from bumper to bumper.

Looking ahead, Arm CSS for Automotive will deliver pre-integrated and validated configurations of Arm AE IP optimised for performance, power, and area using a leading-edge foundry process. Arm’s first CSS for automotive is expected to be delivered in 2025.

The announcement marks a critical step in enabling the automotive ecosystem by unlocking new opportunities for developers and accelerating time to market for leading OEMs, automotive Tier 1 suppliers, silicon partners, and software providers that are all building the future of software-defined vehicles, on Arm.