AURIX microcontroller fuels automated driving

With its high-performing hexa-core architecture and its advanced features for connectivity, security and embedded safety, the AURIX family TC3xx is ideally suited for a wide field of automotive applications.

In addition to engine management and transmission control, powertrain applications include new systems in electrical and hybrid drives. Specifically hybrid domain control, inverter control, battery management, and DC/DC converters will benefit from the new architecture.

The AURIX TC3xx microcontrollers are well-suited to safety-critical applications ranging from airbag, braking and power steering to sensor-based systems using radar or camera technologies.

The combination of performance and a powerful safety architecture makes the TC3xx family ideal for domain control and data fusion applications supporting the next levels towards automated driving.

“The AURIX TC3xx family will advance the automated and electrical car,” said Peter Schaefer, Vice President and General Manager, Microcontrollers at Infineon.

“We are proud to introduce our next generation of high-performing TriCore-based microcontrollers that set new performance standards and offer the right mix in performance, security and safety to meet ISO 26262 ASIL-D system requirements.”

The AURIX TC3xx family will be highly scalable and offer Flash memory sizes of up to 16 MByte and more than 6 MByte of integrated RAM. Compared to today’s AURIX TC2xx microcontrollers with up to three TriCore cores, the TC3xx multicore architecture provides up to six TriCore cores, each with a full clock frequency of 300 MHz.

Four of the six cores feature an additional lockstep core enabling a new level of ISO 26262 functional safe computational power on a single integrated device: Up to 2400 DMIPS performance supporting applications classified ASIL-D, compared to up to 740 DMIPS with the previous AURIX architecture.

The performance increase and the reuse of existing safety concepts allow automotive system suppliers to reduce development costs by 20 percent and improve time-to-market. Also, more functions can now be implemented on a single microcontroller, such as powertrain and chassis domain control and next generation radar and fusion algorithms.

Automotive radar systems ranging from blindspot monitoring to advanced front radar specifically benefit from the capabilities of the AURIX TC3xx family. TC3xx microcontrollers will feature a radar processing sub-system with up to two dedicated Signal Processing Units running at 300 MHz enabling computation of next-generation radar algorithms on a single chip. In addition, radar chips can be seamlessly connected to AURIX via a high-speed digital radar interface.

AURIX TC3xx does not compromise on security. A new version of the programmable Hardware Security Module (HSM) is available across the family: it supports to better secure on-board communications and to prevent hardware manipulation, such as motor tuning.

New asymmetric cryptography accelerators are integrated into the HSM hardware that helps to achieve full EVITA support. The AURIX TC3xx facilitates fast software-over-the-air updates to protect against software hijacking.

As a host controller in gateway and telematics applications, AURIX TC3xx microcontrollers support the latest communications interfaces. They feature a Gigabit Ethernet interface, up to 12 CAN-FD channels compliant to ISO11898-1 and up to 24 LIN channels. An additional eMMC interface for external Flash interfacing enables local data storage supporting software-over-the-air update concepts.

The second generation AURIX TC3xx family is compatible with the previous AURIX TC2xx generation. Engineering samples of the 300 MHz lead device, the TC39xx, with 16 Mbyte of embedded Flash will be available in BGA-516 package and BGA-292. General sampling is scheduled to start in the first quarter of 2017. Qualification of the first product is planned in the first quarter of 2019.