Automotive electronics is one of the hot spots in the development of the automotive industry, with many special application requirements. Reconfigurable computing is an emerging computing technology, and its efficient and flexible computing model can greatly meet the needs of automotive electronics.
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This paper starts with the analysis of the application requirements of automotive electronics, discusses the application prospects of reconfigurable computing technology in the automotive electronics industry and analyzes some existing problems.
1 Introduction
After more than a hundred years of development, the mechanical structure of the car has reached a near perfect level. It is difficult for the industry to improve the performance of the automobile machinery. In order to improve the reliability, functionality and comfort of automobiles, electronic technology is widely used in automobiles. The combination of electronic technology and mechanical structure is considered to be a "revolution" in the current development of automotive technology.
Automotive electronics is the core technology in automotive design. The degree of automotive electronics is an important indicator of the level of development of a country's automotive industry. Automotive designers use automotive electronics to develop new models as the most important technical solution for improving and improving the overall level of the car; automakers are increasing the number of automotive electronics by accelerating the process of electronic electronics. Such measures as the new selling point of the car and the most important means of capturing the future car market. At present, in the design of medium and high-end cars in the world, automotive electronics products account for an average of 27% of the cost of automobile manufacturing. This number is still creating new heights. According to Infineon's forecast, by 2010, the expenditure on automotive electronics for cars will account for 50% of the total manufacturing cost of the vehicle. In China, the average application rate of automotive electronics for each vehicle is 5.5 times lower than the international level [1]. The development and application of automotive electronics technology is a major opportunity and challenge for the advancement of China's automobile industry.
Reconfigurable computing technology was formed in the mid-1990s [2]. As shown in Figure 1, the main idea is to use the reconfigurable features of reconfigurable logic devices (such as FPGA) to change the functions implemented by the device through different device configuration files, so that multiple applications can be flexibly implemented with hardware performance. . The reconfigurable computing technology avoids the performance loss caused by the steps of the microprocessor computing mode due to fetching, decoding, etc., and also eliminates the high cost of the application-integrated circuit (ASIC) computing mode due to the complex process of pre-designed manufacturing. Defects such as non-reusability. Reconfigurable computing technology has been applied in many fields, such as target matching, large numerical operations, etc., and has achieved very good results.
Automotive electronics has many special needs, and reconfigurable computing is an emerging technology with high performance, high flexibility, low development cycle, low cost and other features that are ideal for automotive electronics applications.
2 Demand analysis in the field of automotive electronics
From 1950, GM pioneered the application of semiconductor technology in the field of automotive manufacturing. The installation of transistor radios in automobiles began. The automotive electronics industry has developed over 50 years and has now formed a diversified function, technology integration, and system. Technical features such as integration, communication networking, and technology standardization. Currently, automotive electronics technology has entered the research phase of optimizing the overall relationship between people-automobiles and the environment. While satisfying safety, energy saving and environmental protection, the car will further meet the needs of people's lives and develop in the direction of comfort, convenience, efficiency, digitization, information and intelligence.
Automotive electronics technology mainly has two major application areas: one is the automotive electronic control system, and the other is the automotive electronic device [3]. Among them, the automotive electronic control system is a combination of mechanical and electronic automotive electronics, its working conditions will directly affect the performance of the car. The in-vehicle automotive electronic device is an electronic device that can be used independently in an automobile environment, and its performance does not affect the performance of the automobile. In contrast, the design and development of automotive electronic control systems involves two disciplines, mechanical and electronic. The research and development of these two parts must be coordinated, so the whole process is more complicated. In-vehicle electronic devices are an extension of the application in the IT industry in the automotive industry, such as remote central locking, car phones, rear seat entertainment systems, GPS navigation systems, on-board computers, and the like. These products are independent of the performance of the vehicle and can be developed independently, so compared with the automotive electronic control system, the development process is relatively simple.
The main needs of the development of electronic technology in the automotive electronics field are as follows:
High performance.
The most demanding part of automotive electronics today is the infotainment system in the car. An infotainment system may include multi-channel audio systems, DVD players, GPS navigation systems, and hands-free mobile phones. The functions involved in these subsystems (such as operations such as video processing) require powerful signal processing capabilities and are extremely demanding on performance. In addition, with the in-depth concept of the car's active safety, the new car safety system began to adopt image, video and radar processing, while the engine and brake control system will also adopt more complex calculation control strategies, and the computationally intensive real-time operation will be Play an important role in dealing with emergencies. This also challenges the processing capabilities of related automotive electronics.
Flexible.
A serious problem faced by car designers and manufacturers is the need to ensure that the life of automotive electronics matches the life of the car. The life cycle of automotive electronics is very short, and the emerging emerging automotive standards and the constant changes in the standards themselves further lead to the selection of standards that must take into account their longevity, flexibility and acceptance. In order to ensure that automotive electronics can keep up with the development of the automotive industry, automotive electronics are required to be flexible enough to make timely changes as needed. This demand for automotive electronics is particularly important when current new technology standards are emerging and the industry lacks standards that have absolute advantages.
High reliability.
As a special type of product, cars often work in harsh environments, which imposes strict requirements on the reliability of electronic products used in them. The precision of electronic products makes it an important factor affecting the reliability and safety of the whole vehicle. Especially in automotive electronic control systems, high-temperature working environments often cause damage to electronic products, which greatly increases the risk of the entire vehicle. This requires electronic products to withstand the interference of harsh working environments, and with the appropriate fault tolerance, to minimize the impact of partial damage.
Development time is short.
Minimizing the development time of new models and new products is one of the goals pursued by car designers and manufacturers. Figure 2 shows that the new technology development cycle for automotive electronics is very short. This requires the development of automotive electronics technology to have a convenient and fast development platform, and continuity and reusability in technology research and development, to minimize development time. Especially in the development of automotive electronic devices, because they are not related to the performance of the car itself, it is not subject to the development of other parts of the vehicle, and it is necessary to develop suitable products in the shortest possible time.
low cost.
The automotive industry is very sensitive to the impact of prices. Price is one of the important factors determining the competitiveness of automotive products. The selection of suitable technologies, materials and devices plays an important role in the development of the automotive industry. As the share of automotive electronics in the cost of complete vehicles increases, minimizing the cost of this portion of electronic products is a critical issue.
Above we discussed some of the basic needs for electronics technology in the automotive electronics arena. In addition, automotive electronics need to minimize energy consumption and reduce the space occupied.
3 Application prospects of reconfigurable computing technology in automotive electronics
In current automotive electronics, a large number of microprocessors and application specific integrated circuits are used to achieve key functions. The advent of reconfigurable computing technology provides another efficient and flexible option for automotive electronics.
Schematic diagram of project innovation cycle and development time in the automotive field
The development of reconfigurable computing technology mainly relies on the development of reconfigurable logic device technology and dynamic reconstruction technology. With advances in semiconductor technology, commercial reconfigurable logic devices can now integrate millions of basic logic gate units and other complex computational logic on a single chip, even on high-end devices. Multiple microprocessor cores further enhance the computing power of the device [5]. This provides basic support for reconfigurable logic devices that are only used to implement simple glue logic and prototyping systems to gradually occupy the core position of the computing system. Dynamic reconfiguration is one of the research hotspots of current reconfigurable computing technology. It refers to the configuration of some resources on reconfigurable logic devices as new functions without affecting the normal operation of the current system, thereby improving resource utilization. Rate and increase system performance. Dynamic reconfiguration is the development direction of reconfigurable technology. At present, it focuses on how to reduce device reconstruction overhead and optimize resource scheduling.
Automotive electronics that utilize reconfigurable computing technology have the following advantages over traditional automotive electronics that use microprocessors and ASICs:
Reconfigurable computing technology enables efficient implementation of specific functions.
Reconfigurable logic devices are hardwired logic that changes functionality by changing the configuration of the device. Once the device's configuration information is loaded, the entire system can greatly accelerate the implementation of the hardware with the performance of the hardware. Typical examples of such computationally intensive functions in automotive electronics, such as video processing, are core arithmetic-intensive signal processing operations on fixed-point data. Research has found that these operations are suitable for efficient implementation on reconfigurable logic devices. The use of reconfigurable logic devices to speed up the execution of core algorithms, coupled with additional microprocessors coupled to perform auxiliary functions, such as input, output, etc., is a good way to build a reconfigurable computing system. There are already many efficient video processing systems that utilize reconfigurable computing technology and have been widely used in automotive electronics [6].
Reconfigurable computing technology can flexibly meet multiple functional requirements by dynamically changing device configurations.
The dynamic reconfigurable feature enables the same reconfigurable logic device to meet different design requirements, which is not achievable with traditional ASIC computing models. Automotive electronics are different from ordinary electronics and are subject to many factors. For example, the limitations of the model, the same car with the same basic design will be different models of economy, standard and luxury. This requires corresponding electronic product support for different models. The cost of designing dedicated computing core units and peripheral circuits for each model car is expensive, and reconfigurable computing technology can eliminate this obstacle. Automotive designers can only develop a prototype system that uses reconfigurable logic and then flexibly configure reconfigurable logic into the appropriate functions for different vehicle models. In addition, due to the lack of standards in the industry, the technical standards adopted are also the problems that designers must solve. For example, the current on-board bus has multiple standards such as LIN, CAN, and MOST. The technical parameters of different standards are very different. In order to avoid conflicts between these bus standards, you can consider using reconfigurable logic devices as Bridging logic between standards.
Reconfigurable computing technology is suitable for applications in harsh working environments.
Current reconfigurable computing technologies have withstood many extreme work environments, such as NASA's "Courage" and "Opportunity" rover vehicles that use a large number of reconfigurable logic devices. In automotive applications, temperature can cause the greatest damage to automotive electronics. The industry's highest node temperature is 150 degrees Celsius, and the special package for reconfigurable logic in harsh environments is sufficient to keep the system up and running in this situation. Another advantage of using reconfigurable logic is that it does not require the necessary cooling system for the microprocessor, greatly reducing the space occupied by electronics. In addition, the reconfigurable logic device has a large number of redundant reconfigurable logic resources, so that when some areas of the device are destroyed, the system can use dynamic reconstruction technology to automatically avoid these areas while utilizing other logical resource combinations in the periphery. Replace the broken function of the area.
Reconfigurable computing technology has strong technical support to accelerate product development.
Unlike the design of ASICs, reconfigurable computing technology does not require a large amount of NRE (Non-Recurring Engineering) work. Device manufacturers will provide the appropriate development tools and processes with different reconfigurable logic devices, as well as a large number of reference designs and IP cores to reduce the duplication of the designer and improve the reliability of the design. There are also many mature simulation tools and verification tools that can be used to ensure the correctness of the design at various stages of the design, reducing the time wastage caused by error rework.
The use of reconfigurable computing technology can significantly reduce system cost.
The reduction in system cost is mainly reflected in two parts:
One is in the design process and the other is in the running process. The current unit price of automotive reconfigurable logic devices has dropped to a minimum of $1.50, and the development cost of using it to achieve applications is much lower than that of ASICs. The flexibility of reconfigurable logic makes it unnecessary to be like an application-specific integrated circuit, a subtle modification that leads to the redesign and fabrication of the entire circuit. At the same time, when the system is running, it can be determined that some functions will not be used at the same time, then the designer can consider using dynamic reconstruction technology to realize these two functions separately in different demand periods, so as to achieve "multiple use". , saving resources, space and costs.
As can be seen from the above discussion, the application of reconfigurable computing technology in the field of automotive electronics has great advantages and is a practical technical solution. At present, the industry has also noticed the application prospects of reconfigurable computing technology.
4 Reconfigurable computing technology in the field of automotive electronics
Although reconfigurable computing technology has made great progress in many fields, it will face many problems when it is applied in the automotive electronics field. Here are a few of the most typical questions:
The selection of reconfigurable logic devices. At present, several major manufacturers of commercial reconfigurable logic devices are produced:
Xilinx, Actel, Altera and Lattice have all begun to focus on the automotive electronics sector and have launched products. The hardware structure, processing power and market price of these products vary. How to choose the right device for the application is a very important issue. Current reconfigurable logic devices are basically based on SRAM, Flash or anti-fuse technology. These three technologies have their own advantages, among which the mainstream SRAM-based devices have very powerful processing capabilities; Flash-based devices are less but cost-effective; devices based on anti-fuse technology do not have multiple reconfiguration capabilities but are reliable. Good sex. Therefore, device selection for different applications needs to be based on application and device information.
Implementation of an application on a reconfigurable logic device.
Although there are many ways to simplify the development process of implementing applications using reconfigurable computing technology. However, designing applications executed by reconfigurable logic devices using hardware description languages ​​or hardware schematics is still unfamiliar and difficult for most application developers. In order to eliminate the difficulties encountered by software designers in the hardware implementation of software algorithms, a variety of high-level language hardware description languages ​​have been developed, but these technologies are not mature. Various hardware application design software introduced by EDA software vendors also have some limitations and defects, and can not fully exert the power of reconfigurable computing technology. This requires designers of automotive electronics to master the design ideas of reconfigurable computing technology and penetrate it into the design of the product.
Reliability guarantee for reconfigurable logic devices.
Unlike traditional microprocessor and ASIC computing models, reconfigurable logic devices change functionality by changing device configurations. In particular, SRAM-based devices control the hardwired connections between logic cells in a device by configuration information stored on the device. Therefore, by configuring the port to input other configuration information, it is possible to change or even damage the function of the device, and similar situations have not occurred before. In order to prevent these problems, it is necessary to use reconfigurable logic devices based on anti-fuse technology that can only be reconstructed once, or to encrypt the configuration information on key electronic devices.
.. Development and use of dynamic reconstruction technology. Although dynamic reconfiguration technology has been greatly developed in theory, and many prototype systems have been developed. However, due to technical constraints, there is currently no universal R&D method, and there are still some shortcomings in the technology that is actually used on the product. This requires collaboration between industry and academia to tackle key applications in the automotive electronics arena, and to apply the current mature dynamic reconfiguration technology to automotive electronics as much as possible, bringing advantages such as high efficiency and high resource utilization. At the same time, the research on the methodology of dynamic reconstruction technology is carried out, which provides technical support for the wider application of dynamic reconstruction technology in the field of electronic products.
5 Summary
Automotive electronics has occupied a very important position in the entire automotive industry, and has a broad market prospect. The development of the automotive electronics industry is a top priority for the development of the automotive industry. Automotive electronics have many special requirements due to the special field of their applications. In contrast, traditional microprocessor and ASIC computing models are not able to meet these needs well. Reconfigurable computing technology makes full use of the reconfigurable features of reconfigurable logic devices, combined with dynamic reconfiguration technology, enabling efficient and flexible implementation of automotive electronics applications, while being traditionally incomparable in terms of reliability, development time, and system cost. The advantages. Although there are still some problems in practical applications, it has aroused great concern in the industry and academia. We believe that reconfigurable computing technology represents a technological trend in the development of automotive electronics, and will certainly make a difference in the field of automotive electronics.
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