Supporting the trend in the automotive industry toward digital cockpits, Infineon Technologies and MediaTek along with its design house partners developed a cockpit solution based on Infineon's TRAVEO CYT4DN MCU family and an entry-level MediaTek Dimensity Auto SoC.
Reducing system bill-of-materials (BOM) costs for both hardware and software, it replaces the buttons and controls on the dashboard with advanced touchscreen displays. The cockpit leverages the MCU and SoC to meet the ASIL B safety target for automotive clusters, monitoring the content rendered by the SoC to take over with reduced functionality in case of an error. It also performs normal companion functions such as communication with the vehicle network.
“Our automotive SoC, combined with Infineon’s TRAVEO T2G MCU, will provide a cost-effective cockpit solution that delivers new possibilities to OEMs and Tier 1 companies,” said Mr. Xiong Jian, vice general manager of the Automotive product line at MediaTek. “This option will greatly boost the performance and capabilities of the cockpit in entry-level car models.”
“A modern cockpit supports the driver and increases driving comfort for all vehicle occupants. That is why it is important to us that cost-optimized vehicle models can also be equipped with digital solutions. Together with MediaTek and our partners, we are pleased to pave the way for digital cockpits for all vehicles,” said Ralf Koedel, Vice President Microcontroller Smart Mobility at Infineon.
He added, “The TRAVEO T2G CYT4DN MCU incorporates our low-power flash memory, multiple high-performance analog and digital peripherals and enables the creation of a secure computing platform.”
Cockpit Cost-Cutting Measures
The cockpit supports a resolution of 1920 × 720 pixels for clusters and the in-vehicle infotainment display, simplifying the software and significantly reducing its cost. The SoC uses the Android operating system, eliminating the need for a hypervisor and a large commercial operating system. The devices are available with memory options such as 4 MB of VRAM, 6 MB of flash and 768 kB of RAM on a per-line basis.
The family of TRAVEO T2G microcontrollers is designed specifically for automotive systems such as instrument clusters and head-up displays (HUDs). They feature a 2.5D graphics engine, sound processing, two Arm Cortex-M7 CPUs for primary processing at up to 320 MHz, and an Arm Cortex-M0+ CPU for peripheral and safety processing.
The family also incorporates a 720p GFX and a novel 327-ball BGA package, with embedded peripherals supporting Controller Area Network with Flexible Data Rate (CAN FD), Local Interconnect Network (LIN), Clock Extension Peripheral Interface (CXPI), and Gigabit Ethernet.
