ARTICLE OCTOBER 2002 VERTICAL AND HORIZONTAL COLLABORATION IS ESSENTIAL IN VEHICLE ELECTRONICS New electronic components and architectures are essential building blocks for the global automotive industry. Today's vehicles demand high levels of quality, safety, reliability and durability combined with low environmental impact. At the same time, car users want higher levels of comfort, more real-time information to make their journeys easier and all levels of in-vehicle entertainment not imagined even a decade ago. Electronics, information technology and communications have become major elements of vehicles - both as original equipment and as add-on systems. The European Council for Automotive R&D (EUCAR) sees a need for electronics and communications systems to be integrated as quickly as possible, providing driver assistance, enhanced safety for road users, infrastructure support for incident and efficiency management, and for on-board services and driver information systems. A major challenge is the different development cycles of the areas involved. Infrastructure changes can take 30 to 50 years, the lifetime of a car can be from 10 to 15 years and the design cycle of new vehicle models is 3 to 5 years. This all contrasts markedly with the typical 18-month development cycle of the electronics industry. Therefore developing suitable automotive systems cannot be done in isolation - it depends on close cross industry, vertical collaboration. Standardisation is particularly important to make the most of the synergy between in-vehicle electronic systems, computerisation and telematics. Designing products to common standards enables automotive manufacturers and their electronics systems suppliers to ensure that existing models can be upgraded at any time. A common bus standard is imperative, for example, to help carmakers avoid technology obsolescence. Two standards have already been developed in this area:
The Automotive Multimedia Interface Collaboration (AMI-C) is considering both systems. AMI-C is a global organisation representing the majority of the world's vehicle manufacturers. AMI-C is developing and standardising a common automotive multimedia and telematics interface for vehicle communication networks. Its principal goals are to:
Earlier this year, AMI-C established a joint task force with MOST Cooperation in Karlsruhe, Germany to begin harmonising their respective specifications. The objective is to ensure that the AMI-C architecture framework can use the MOST high-speed network, and to co-operate on developing priorities and plans for the future. The organisations have many members in common, developing production vehicles that use MOST networks. AMI-C is also proposing enhancements to the IDB 1394 physical specification. MEDEA+ partners are already involved in many of these standardisation processes. And the MEDEA+ A404 Silicon Systems for Automotive Electronics (SSAE) project is leading the way in designing new architectures and generic chipsets to support electronic/telematics applications in cars. The objective is to define suitable architecture in line with AMI-C specifications as well as designing and evaluating system-level components and specific connecting devices. The basis of the approach is the use of fault-tolerant buses to link and control a variety of central units and multi-function modules that will acquire, transfer and store data. A new electrical and electronic vehicle architecture links intelligent switching units for body and comfort functions, a telematics box, a multimedia box, other electronic control units and peripheral electro-mechanical (mechatronic) modules. Other goals of the SSAE project include the design of reliable and cost-effective silicon components and specific connecting devices that will perform as part of such architecture. Relevant software protocols are being developed in the ITEA Embedded Electronic Architecture (EAST-EEA) project, which started at the beginning of 2001 and is due to end in 2003. A major concern is the cost of implementing such new architecture. The SSAE project is concentrating on the development of multi-function chip modules that can easily be mass-produced for a number of car models. The 12 partners in horizontal and/or vertical competition include carmakers, equipment suppliers, and chip manufacturers. This group offers a broad expertise in car manufacture, electronics and telematics equipment supply, semiconductor production and service provision. But MEDEA+ support to the automotive area also includes the development of underlying component technologies:
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