Volkswagen’s CARIAD and STMicroelectronics to Co-Develop Chip for Software-Defined Vehicles
July 25, 2022
News
CARIAD, the software unit of Volkswagen Group, and STMicroelectronics will shortly launch the joint development of an automotive system-on-chip (SoC), a new cooperation model for software-defined cars.
Together, CARIAD and ST are developing tailored hardware for connectivity, energy management, and over-the-air updates designed to make vehicles fully software-defined, secure, and future-proof.
The planned cooperation targets the new generation of Volkswagen Group vehicles that will be based on the unified and scalable software platform. At the same time, the parties are moving to agree that TSMC, one of the world’s leading dedicated semiconductor foundry companies, will manufacture the SoC wafers for ST. With this move, CARIAD aims to secure the chip supply for the Volkswagen Group's cars years in advance.
As part of its semiconductor strategy, CARIAD will enter into direct relationships with semiconductor suppliers at the Tier 2 and Tier 3-level for the Volkswagen Group for the first time. In the future, CARIAD plans to direct Tier 1 suppliers of the Group to use only the SoC co-developed with ST and ST’s standard Stellar microcontroller for CARIAD’s zone architecture.
This co-development is a first for CARIAD and ST. "With the co-development of the system-on-chip with ST ahead of us, we are consistently pursuing our semiconductor strategy. The SoC we are designing will be optimally matched to our software – without compromise. In this way, we can offer our Group's customers the best performance for their cars," says CARIAD CEO Dirk Hilgenberg. "The use of a single, optimized architecture in all Volkswagen electronic control units will give us an enormous boost for the efficient development of our software platform." This efficiency will allow all electronic control unit (ECU) devices – from microcontrollers to SoCs – to run on a common basic software in the future.
The new SoC aims to complement ST’s high-performance Stellar microcontroller family by extending its power-efficient real-time capabilities to service-oriented environments. CARIAD is contributing its specific target requirements and functionalities for the Volkswagen Group vehicles and will help extend the architecture of ST’s 32-bit Stellar Automotive microcontroller.
CARIAD will include both the jointly developed SoCs based on Stellar and the standard Stellar microcontroller in its new AU1 processor family. Its range offers CARIAD flexible scaling for various applications in the car to meet the needs of all Volkswagen Group brands. The chips are being designed for all applications in the areas of networking, drivetrain, energy management, and comfort electronics – in zone controllers or in servers in VW’s operating system, VW.OS. Building on Stellar’s unique attributes, the entire AU1 processor family will be able to map future function extensions via over-the-air updates. Using a common device architecture will enable CARIAD experts to develop only one basic software for all electronic control units (ECU), substantially reducing complexity and accelerating development. Moreover, the Stellar architecture encourages the integration of numerous functions into individual ECUs. This is designed to reduce the number of ECUs in the car, increasing the cost effectiveness and reliability for the software company.
The collaboration with ST enables CARIAD to further expand its expertise in semiconductors and gain additional experience in their co-development.
For more information, visit https://cariad.technology.
