Renesas Unveils R-Car V4H for Automated Driving Level 2+ / Level 3 to Support High-Volume Vehicle Production in 2024

By Tiera Oliver

Associate Editor

Embedded Computing Design

March 11, 2022

News

Renesas Unveils R-Car V4H for Automated Driving Level 2+ / Level 3 to Support High-Volume Vehicle Production in 2024

Renesas announced the R-Car V4H system on chip (SoC) for central processing in advanced driver-assistance (ADAS) and automated driving (AD) solutions.

The R-Car V4H achieves deep learning performance of up to 34 TOPS (Tera Operations Per Second), enabling high-speed image recognition and processing of surrounding objects by automotive cameras, radar, and lidar.

The R-Car V4H features a combination of IP and expert HW optimization. It targets the highest volume zones of automated driving: Level 2+ and Level 3.  

Thanks to a high level of integration, the R-Car V4H allows customers to develop cost-competitive, single-chip, ADAS electric control units (ECUs). These control units may support driving systems appropriate for automated driving Levels 2+ and Level 3, including full NCAP 2025 features. The R-Car V4H also supports surround view and automatic parking functions with 3D visualization effects such as realistic rendering. 

Regarding ISO 26262 functional safety, the SoC development process targets ASIL D systematic capability for all safety relevant IP. The signal processing portion of the R-Car V4H is expected to achieve ASIL B and D metrics for the real time domain.  

Furthermore, Renesas provides a dedicated power solution for R-Car V4H based around the RAA271041 pre-regulator and the RAA271005 PMIC. This enables a reliable power supply for the R-Car V4H and peripheral memories from the 12V supply of the vehicle battery. These features enable low power operation while targeting ASIL D compliance for systematic and random hardware faults at very low BOM cost. This helps to minimize the effort of hardware and software development while reducing design complexity, cost, and time to market.

An R-Car V4H software development kit (SDK) is also available to perform faster and easier initial device evaluation, and software development including deep learning. The SDK offers full functionality for machine learning development, and optimization of embedded systems for performance, power efficiency, and functional safety. Complete simulation models are available, and the Renesas operating system agnostic software platform enables ideal development of the software-defined car. 

In case of development from scratch, Fixstars’ Genesis platform enables engineers to evaluate R-Car from anywhere via their cloud solution and can provide quick and easy CNN benchmark results.  

Key Features of R-Car V4H:

  • Four Arm® Cortex-A76 at 1.8 Ghz for a total of 49KDMIPS of general compute for ADAS / AD applications
  • Three lockstep Arm Cortex-R52 cores at 1.4 Ghz, for a total of 9KDMIPS to support ASIL D real-time operation and eliminate the need for external microcontrollers
  • Dedicated Deep Learning & Computer Vision I/Ps with overall performance of 34 TOPS
  • Image Signal Processor (ISP) with parallel processing for machine and human vision
  • Image renderer (IMR) for fisheye distortion correction or other mathematical operation
  • Graphic processor Unit (GPU) AXM-8-256 @ 600MHz, for a total of over 150 GFLOPS
  • Dedicated automotive Interfaces: CAN, Ethernet AVB, TSN and FlexRay
  • Two fourth generation PCIe interfaces

Samples of the R-Car V4H SoC are available now, with mass production scheduled for the second quarter of 2024.

For more information, visit: renesas.com/r-car-V4H.

Tiera Oliver, Associate Editor for Embedded Computing Design, is responsible for web content edits, product news, and constructing stories. She also assists with newsletter updates as well as contributing and editing content for ECD podcasts and the ECD YouTube channel. Before working at ECD, Tiera graduated from Northern Arizona University where she received her B.S. in journalism and political science and worked as a news reporter for the university’s student led newspaper, The Lumberjack.

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