The trend toward software-defined mobility goes hand-in-hand with a centralized vehicle and electric/electronic (E/E) architecture, according to Bosch. While numerous ECUs (electronic control units) usually control different functions in the car today, the supplier believes that in the future just a few central vehicle computers will unite multiple system functions from previously separate domains using powerful processors known as SOCs (systems on chips).

Bosch sees great market potential for these vehicle computers. At CES 2024 in Las Vegas, it says it will be the world’s first automotive supplier to demonstrate the fusion of infotainment and driver assistance functions in a software-intensive central computer on a single SoC.

Overall, the supplier says it is already doing good business with vehicle computers. In 2026, it expects sales revenue of €3 billion just for vehicle computers for infotainment and driver assistance.

“We want to reduce the complexity of the electronics systems in cars and make them as secure as possible at the same time,” said Dr. Markus Heyn, member of the board of management at Robert Bosch GmbH and Chairman of Bosch Mobility. “With this demonstration of our new vehicle computer platform at CES, we are taking an important step in exactly this direction. Our goal in the medium term is to bring even more automated driving functions to the road including to the compact and mid-sized car segments.”

Called the cockpit & ADAS integration platform, the Bosch SoC processes a variety of functions from the infotainment and driver assistance domains simultaneously. For example, this includes automated parking and lane detection paired with smart personalized navigation and voice assistance. Advantages for vehicle manufacturers are less space and cabling required, meaning lower costs.

“Central vehicle computers are the heart of software-defined cars,” said Heyn. “In the future, they will control all the domains in modern vehicles and reduce the currently high number of individual control units.”

Nearly every vehicle maker in the world is currently investing massively in software-defined vehicles. Bosch predicts that the market for automotive software will reach a volume of around €200 billion by 2030. In the field of vehicle computers for infotainment and driver assistance systems, the company expects a market volume of €32 billion in 2030. Bosch believes it has a competitive advantage due to its extensive knowledge in key vehicle domains such as drives, brakes, steering, infotainment, and automated driving.

For its central vehicle computers, Bosch uses a modular system approach. Combined with stand-alone software solutions such as video perception for surround sensing, it says that vehicle manufacturers can modularly and scalably assemble their solutions in combination with hardware components.

Software-intensive central computers play a key role in enabling manufacturers to implement driving and assistance features, and software integration is in strong demand. So, Bosch aims to bring its integrative expertise and enable software components from various sources to be combined.

To accommodate the largest swath of customers, Bosch’s approach is to allow maximum flexibility with what it calls a multi-SoC approach. The company’s new vehicle computers are designed so that SoCs can come from different manufacturers depending on the customer’s wishes.

“Our software runs on chips from different chip manufacturers,” said Heyn. “This allows software and hardware to be decoupled from each other.”