Microcontroller is NEC's first to Pass the FlexRay Conformance Test

According to TÜV Nord Group’s Institute for Vehicle Technology and Mobility, the official FlexRay protocol conformance test body nominated by the FlexRay consortium, NEC Electronics’ V850E/PHO3 is the world-wide first microcontroller which successfully passed the FlexRay Conformance Test in March 2007. Based on 275 test cases, the test checks the correct functional behaviour of the embedded FlexRay communication controller as described in the current FlexRay v2.1 specification. The Conformance Test certification is obligatory for every microcontroller implemented in a FlexRay cluster for use in series production cars.

The chassis segment is known to be most challenging in terms of safety requirements. Many applications in this field are ranked SIL3 (IEC61508), respectively ASILC to ASILD (ISO26262). V850E/PHO3 actively supports the design of SIL3 conformant ECU’s with high-efficient onboard safety diagnostics like ECC on flash, ECC on RAM, hardware CRC, redundant peripherals (e.g. two independent ADCs), Core Self Test SW and an FPU suitable to implement diverse processing. Furthermore it is dedicated to automotive chassis applications using brushless DC motors like electronic power steering, electronic braking or damping and other vehicle stability control applications. With FlexRay expected to become the network of choice, V850E/PHO3 is extremely well prepared for such applications. Additionally providing a complete, ready-to-use AUTOSAR MCAL software stack for the V850E/PHO3, NEC Electronics enables quick design of standardized and re-usable application software.

The peripheral set of the V850E/PHO3 is compatible to its predecessor V850E/PHO2 providing an easy upgrade path as well as a scalable microcontroller solution. It is based on the well known V850E CPU core (including FPU) running at up to 128MHz clock speed. The embedded memory of 1MB Flash, 32kB Data Flash and 60KB of RAM offers huge space for complex application software. In addition to the FlexRay Communication Controller the V850E/PHO3 is equipped with 2x CAN, 3x LIN-UART,4x CSI interfaces and a 32bit non-mux bus interface enabling advanced network architectures. With its two ADCs, 14 independent multi-channel PWM timer and two real time pulse it is optimized for inverter control applications enabling control of up to two 3-phase brushless DC motors simultaneously with a highly efficient DMA reducing CPU load to a minimum. The V850E/PHO3 is hosted in a small footprint 357 ball BGA package.