NXP Semiconductors N.V. says it has broken through the integration barriers for next-generation software-defined vehicle (SDV) development with the introduction of its S32 CoreRide platform. The chipmaker NXP held an invite-only event in Detroit earlier this week announcing the SDV development aimed at simplifying vehicle architecture development featuring Henri Ardevol, EVP and GM of Automotive Embedded Systems, and Ray Cornyn, SVP and GM of Vehicle Control and Network Solutions.

The development comes as NXP says that the proliferation of hardware-defined variants across different vehicle classes has become impractical to maintain in the modern vehicle architecture development flow. While the company believes that the rise of SDVs introduces promising yet challenging paths forward, it says that a new software-defined approach is imminent as upgradable features and new revenue streams are in demand across vehicle fleets.

The company’s new vehicle software platform is engineered to greatly simplify complex vehicle architecture development and cut costs for automakers and Tier 1 suppliers. The platform combines NXP’s established S32 compute, networking, system power management, and software from the company’s extensive software partner ecosystem.

The company is also unveiling its first S32 CoreRide solution for central compute based on NXP’s new S32N family of vehicle super-integration processors. It offers scalable combinations of real-time application processing and vehicle networking.

“The automotive industry’s shift to software-defined vehicles presents unprecedented levels of disruption,” said Ardevol. “In the last decade, many industries have successfully adopted faster innovation cycles and effectively achieved higher performance at lower cost through tight integration of silicon and software. With NXP’s S32 CoreRide platform, automakers can now radically transform their approach to SDV development by adopting a much faster, open development path.”

 

Platform integration and consolidation

Automakers have struggled to move functions from the traditional multi-ECU to zoned or centralized processing due to software and architectural inconsistencies. NXP says its S32 CoreRide platform represents the next milestone in overcoming the software and hardware integration challenges blocking the fast adoption of SDVs.

Leveraging the scalable S32 compute, OEMs can use the platform to consolidate ECUs and develop flexible architectures—from domain to zonal, to centralized—that scale across vehicle classes and generations. The platform provides the ability to isolate vehicle functions, helping to ensure freedom from interference between each application and dynamically re-allocate resources so applications do not degrade in performance as they evolve.

This level of integration and flexibility advances carmakers and Tier 1 suppliers to the next point in their development since they can now use the S32 CoreRide platform to put more focus on differentiation and the creation of application software for new business models.

 

Ecosystem support

The S32 CoreRide platform integrates NXP’s broad hardware portfolio with software from the world’s leading automotive experts across a comprehensive ecosystem including Accenture ESR Labs, ArcherMind, Blackberry QNX, Elektrobit, ETAS, Green Hills Software, Sonatus, Synopsys, TTTech Auto, Vector Informatik, and Wind River as well as Tier 1 suppliers like Valeo. Those experts are enthusiastically supporting the new NXP offering.

Synopsys’ longstanding support for the NXP S32 automotive processing platform now includes the newly announced S32 CoreRide platform.

“This collaboration enables automotive companies with our Synopsys Virtualizer Development Kit for NXP S32N to accelerate their software development and test through the deployment of ECUs and vehicle digital twins of the electronics,” said Tom De Schutter, VP of Engineering, System Design Group at Synopsys.

Green Hills is an integration partner with NXP, offering automotive OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers a portfolio of safety- and security-certified software solutions, integrated, and optimized for NXP’s new platform.

“Our production-proven RTOSes, virtualization services, and advanced development tools enable customers to elevate their use of the S32 CoreRide platform by enabling ECU consolidation, accelerating complex system development, and reducing cost and time to market for the core vehicle functions of mixed-criticality multi-core SDV architectures,” said Dan Mender, VP of Business Development at Green Hills Software.

BlackBerry QNX is looking to deepen its partnership with NXP and the open platform to deliver integrated hardware and software solutions that meet the needs of the industry.

“As the automotive industry moves toward fully software-defined vehicles, the importance of close collaboration between software and silicon vendors becomes even more critical,” said Grant Courville, VP of product and strategy at BlackBerry QNX.

Wind River, an auto software pioneer, is looking to the NXP platform to to deliver cost efficiencies and drastically reduce time to market for its customers, said Amit Ronen, Chief Customer Officer at Wind River.

“With NXP’s S32 CoreRide platform, we will bring our expertise in tooling, services, and productization, as well as our experience consolidating multiple mixed-criticality workloads on multi-core SoCs, to NXP’s expandable automotive platform,” he said.

 

First solutions for central compute

At the event, NXP introduced its first application based on the S32 CoreRide platform. The central-compute solution is based on the new S32N family of vehicle super-integration processors, advanced vehicle networking, system power management, and pre-integrated software from the S32 CoreRide open partner ecosystem. It allows automakers to easily integrate many cross-vehicle functions running in isolation-ready execution environments enabled by the S32N family’s automotive-grade hardware isolation capabilities.

The scalable S32N family, built for the highest level of automotive functional safety, offers multiple combinations of real-time and applications-processing cores to meet a range of central compute needs. All S32N devices integrate an advanced hardware security engine and multi-port TSN Ethernet switch and CAN hub, with some also supporting Ethernet packet acceleration, AI/ML acceleration, and cost-effective, inter-compute PCI Express services.

The S32 CoreRide central-compute solution targets ISO 26262 ASIL D functional safety requirements. It can unlock SDV benefits by providing vehicle data intelligence for streamlining the deployment and monetization of enhanced capabilities and new services over a vehicle’s lifetime.

NXP is engaged with automakers and Tier 1s today with initial offerings of the S32 CoreRide platform. Production vehicles leveraging S32 CoreRide capabilities are in development today. The first production vehicles are expected to ramp up in 2027.