Ethernet timing features improve automotive design

1st May 2015

Symtavision

Jordan Mulcare

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To strenghthen and improve timing design and verification for automotive Ethernet and multicore systems, Symtavision has launched SymTA/S 3.7. It introduces new Ethernet timing design and verification features including the modeling and analysis of dynamic data chains and data dependent dynamic Ethernet frame packing. It also has faster system distribution analysis compared to previous versions.

It also incorporates new general modeling and timing analysis features Gantt-Filter, APIs and improved AUTOSAR 4.x multicore import. At the same time, the company has released TraceAnalyzer 3.7 which is fully integrated with SymTA/S 3.7.

It introduces the ability to model and analyse dynamic data chains with the data dependent execution of ECU tasks and frame transmission on Ethernet and CAN allowing the detailed analysis of the gateways between the networks. The modeling and analysis of data dependent dynamic frame packing allows Ethernet frames to be dynamically packed based on the availability of Protocol Data Unit data. Ethernet-Trigger and Trigger elements are combined into a single Trigger function to ease modeling of activation chaining.

It also features improved Ethernet system distribution performance with Ethernet systems analysing up to two times faster than in version 3.6. All Ethernet timing analysis functionality is integrated with its analyses for CAN, FlexRay and AUTOSAR-based ECUs, enabling end-to-end timing analysis for distributed functions via Ethernet. There is also the connection of Ethernet networks to legacy CAN and FlexRay networks via AUTOSAR or OSEK gateways.

ECU communication patterns are supported with a mixture of time-triggered, event-triggered and polling communication and software activation.

Users can now analyse gateway ECUs as well as partitioned software on multicore ECUs. There are also new visualisations such as timing diagram views for sub-systems and software components and a clear visualisation of individual data/signal flows. AUTOSAR 4.0 multicore import allows users to embed timing analysis into multicore ECU design flows.

Both SymTA/S 3.7 and TraceAnalyzer 3.7 provide checking execution order constraints (e.g. of AUTOSAR runnables) on the modeling level and for imported traces. Finally, TraceAnalyzer 3.7 now offers a flexible trace import API, which can be used through Python scripting or SOAP. With this API, it can now be quickly integrated with virtually any ECU tracing and logging environment, and facilitates fully-automated validation of traces of any format.