The Smart cabin provides a cost-effective infotainment solution for smart mobility

     The trend in the automotive industry is towards a digital cockpit, where buttons and controls on the dashboard will disappear and be replaced by advanced displays. As one of the key systems of the vehicle, the digital cockpit system needs to provide high-performance functions for the vehicle user while meeting the functional safety objectives. The traditional way to achieve this is to run digital cockpit systems on high-performance SoCs with overseers. However, the upfront investment required to start using such a system is in the seven-figure range, and licensing fees for the operating system and hypervisor increase the overall cost of the system, making it economically unattractive for mid - to low-end models.

     Infineon Technologies AG, together with Mediatek and its design company partners, has developed an easy-to-use cockpit solution based on its TRAVEO CYT4DN MCU family and an entry-level Mediatek Dimensity Auto SoC solution that reduces system BOM costs for hardware and software. In this easy-to-use cockpit solution, the MCU is a safety companion to the SoC to meet the ASIL-B safety objectives of the automotive cluster. The TRAVEO MCU monitors what the SoC presents and takes over functionality reduction in the event of an error, in addition to normal supporting functions such as communicating with the vehicle network.

     "The combination of our automotive SoC with Infineon's TRAVEO T2G MCU will provide a cost-effective cockpit solution that offers new possibilities for Oems and Tier 1 companies," said Mr. Xiong Jian, Vice general manager of Mediatek's automotive product line. This option will significantly improve cockpit performance and capability in entry-level models."

     "The modern cockpit supports the driver and improves driving comfort for all vehicle passengers. That's why it's important for us that cost-optimized models can also be equipped with digital solutions. Together with Mediatek and our partners, we are excited to pave the way for digital cockpits in all vehicles, "said Ralf Koedel, Vice President of Intelligent Mobility at Infineon MicroControllers. The TRAVEO T2G CYT4DN MCU integrates our low-power flash memory and multiple high-performance analog and digital peripherals to create a secure computing platform."

     This new cockpit solution supports cluster and in-vehicle infotainment display resolutions of 1920 x 720 pixels. The cluster display is driven by an asil-b compliant TRAVEO CYT4DN MCU for high reliability. It also simplifies the software and greatly reduces software costs because the SoC runs on the open-source Android operating system, eliminating the need for hypervisors and large commercial operating systems. This avoids large investments in software or licensing fees. Suppliers and manufacturers can maintain and update software, reducing costs.

     The device is a TRAVEO T2G mcu family designed for automotive systems such as dashboards and HUD. The device is manufactured in an advanced 40nm process and features a 2.5D graphics engine, sound processing, two Arm Cortex-M7 cpus for primary processing up to 320MHz, and one Arm Cortex-M0+ CPU for peripheral and security processing. The series also features a 720p GFX and a unique 327-ball BGA bag. In addition, the family includes embedded peripherals that support CAN FD, LIN, CXPI, and Gigabit Ethernet. Memory options include 4MB of VRAM, 6MB of Flash, and 768KB of RAM.