The overall automotive electronics scenario is determined by the Acronym CASE – the cars are increasingly Connected, driving is Automated with Shared usage models, and with Electric propulsion, enumerated Shinichi Yoshioka, CTO of Renesas’ Automotive Business Division: 90 % of all new cars will be connected by 2025. Automated driving at levels 2 and 2.9 are going to volume production. Car Sharing and new usage models bring Big Data services into the equation. Battery, Plug-in hybrid and 48V vehicles are seeing quickly rising demand. So far, nothing new in the scenario. Yoshioka added another E to this acronym: The E/E architecture undergoes a dramatic change with centralized controls and virtualization being the dominating determinants.
This constellation highlights the requirements for future in-car compute platforms. Powerful edge computing, Artificial Intelligence and computer vision will need more sophisticated and advanced silicon. The same holds true for the link between vehicle and cloud which runs through a similarly powerful head unit or gateway computer. “These are the areas we want to be active”, Yoshioka said.
in which Renesas plans to intensify its activities
Having added the R-Car V3M and R-Car V3H processor variants to the R-Car family in the 2017 / 2018 time frame, the company is offering two devices with focus on vision applications. According to Yoshioka, these two variants will be seen in vehicles whose production starts in 2019.
