In order to serve many automotive domains, such as Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), in-vehicle infotainment (IVI), and gateway applications on a single chip, Renesas Electronics Corporation introduced a new generation of automotive fusion system-on-chips (SoCs).
The highly anticipated R-Car X5H SoC, the first device in the R-Car X5 series, was built using the most recent 3-nanometer (nm) automotive process technology. It offers the highest level of integration and performance in the industry, enabling OEMs and Tier 1s to switch to centralized Electronic Control Units (ECUs) for streamlined development and future-proof system solutions.
Because of its special hardware-based isolation technology, Renesas’ R-Car X5H is one of the first in the market to provide highly integrated, secure processing solutions on a single chip for numerous automotive domains. Furthermore, the new SoC provides the opportunity to use chiplet technology to increase AI and graphics processing speed.
The R-Car X5H, the most powerful vehicle in the fifth-generation (Gen 5) R-Car Family, tackles the increasing complexity of Software-Defined Vehicle (SDV) development head-on.
These difficulties include balancing hardware and software integration, cost, power consumption, and computation performance while maintaining vehicle safety.
These devices enable a new class of automated driving, IVI, and gateway applications by tightly combining application processing, real-time processing, GPU and AI compute, big display capabilities, and sensor connectivity on a single chip.
Up to 400 TOPS of AI acceleration with industry-leading TOPS/W performance and up to 4 TFLOPS*¹ of GPU processing are made possible by the new SoC family.
It includes six Arm Cortex-R52 dual lockstep CPU cores that provide over 60K DMIPS performance with support for ASIL D capabilities without the need for external microcontrollers (MCUs) and 32 Arm® Cortex®-A720AE CPU cores for application processing, which provide over 1,000K DMIPS performance.
In comparison to devices made for a 5-nm production node, the new SoC series, which is manufactured using one of TSMC’s most advanced process nodes, achieves both top-end CPU performance and a 30-35 percent reduction in power consumption. By removing the need for extra cooling solutions and increasing vehicle operating range, these power-efficient features drastically reduce total system costs.
Chiplet Extensions for Flexibility and Additional Performance
Renesas is providing customers with the option to enhance their performance with chiplet extensions, even though the R-Car Gen 5 SoCs have strong native NPU and GPU processing engines.
They can increase their AI processing performance by three to four times or more, for instance, by integrating a 400-TOPS on-chip NPU with an external NPU through a chiplet expansion.
The standard UCle (Universal Chiplet connector Express) die-to-die connector and APIs are provided by the R-Car X5H for smooth chiplet integration, enabling compatibility with other parts of a multi-die system, even if they are not Renesas chips. Car OEMs and Tier 1s can mix and match various functionalities and tailor their systems, including future updates across vehicle platforms, thanks to this flexible design approach.
Mixed-Criticality Processing for Secure Isolation
Safety continues to be the top priority for automakers and Tier-1 suppliers, despite their increasing demands for performance and functionality.
The R-Car X5H SoC provides hardware-based Freedom from Interference (FFI) technology in addition to software-based isolation, which is the only method used by other SoCs. Brake-by-wire and other safety-critical features are safely separated from non-critical features by this hardware design approach.
The assignment of distinct, redundant domains to functions that are considered safety vital will prevent potentially disastrous vehicle failures in the case of a hardware or software malfunction from a different domain. Each domain will have its own independent CPU core, memory, and interfaces. Additionally, the R-Car X5H has Quality of Service (QoS) management, which allocates processing resources in real time and establishes workload priorities.
The Fifth-Generation R-Car Platform with Scalability
Safety continues to be the top priority for automakers and Tier-1 suppliers, despite their increasing demands for performance and functionality.
The R-Car X5H SoC provides hardware-based Freedom from Interference (FFI) technology in addition to software-based isolation, which is the only method used by other SoCs. Brake-by-wire and other safety-critical features are safely separated from non-critical features by this hardware design approach.
The assignment of distinct, redundant domains to functions that are considered safety vital will prevent potentially disastrous vehicle failures in the case of a hardware or software malfunction from a different domain. Each domain will have its own independent CPU core, memory, and interfaces. Additionally, the R-Car X5H has Quality of Service (QoS) management, which allocates processing resources in real time and establishes workload priorities.
R-Car Open Access (RoX) Platform Available for SDV Development
By integrating hardware and software into a single development platform, Renesas’ most recent R-Car X5H and all upcoming Gen 5 products are intended to speed up SDV development.
With the help of the recently released R-Car Open Access (RoX) SDV platform, automotive developers can quickly create next-generation vehicles with safe and consistent software upgrades by integrating all necessary hardware, operating systems (OS), software, and tools.
RoX gives OEMs and Tier-1 suppliers the ability to virtually create a wide range of scalable computing solutions for body control, domain, and zone control systems, as well as ADAS, IVI, gateway, and cross-domain fusion systems.
Demonstration at electronica 2024
Renesas will present a live demonstration of the R-Car Gen 5 development environment at electronica 2024 in Munich, Germany, November 12-15 in Hall B4, Stand 179. At the show, attendees will have the opportunity to watch how engineers can design automotive software using the Renesas Open Access (RoX) development platform.
Key Comments
“Our latest innovations in the R-Car Gen 5 platform tackle the complex challenges the automotive industry faces today,” said Vivek Bhan, Senior Vice President and General Manager of High Performance Computing at Renesas. “Our customers are looking for end-to-end automotive-grade system solutions that cover everything from hardware optimization, safety compliance to flexible and scalable architecture selection and seamless tools and software integration. Our R-Car Gen 5 Family meets these demands and we are committed to helping the industry accelerate SDV development and Shift-Left innovations for the next era of automotive technology.”
“We are thrilled to partner with a trusted automotive technology leader like Renesas to bring their latest innovation to market using our state-of-the-art 3-nm process technology,” said Dr. Kevin Zhang, TSMC’s Senior Vice President of Business Development and Global Sales, and Deputy Co-COO. “Our N3A process is optimized for advanced automotive SoCs, with industry-leading 3-nm performance at AEC Q-100 Grade 1 reliability. We are excited to work with Renesas to develop this R-Car Gen 5 platform, and help re-shape the future of ‘silicon-defined vehicles’.”
Asif Anwar, Executive Director of Automotive Market Analysis, TechInsights, stated, “The path to the SDV will be underpinned by the digitalization of the cockpit, vehicle connectivity, and ADAS capabilities. The vehicle electric/electronic (E/E) architecture will be the core enabler as features and functions are integrated into zonal and centralized controllers that will provide the necessary compute capabilities. TechInsights forecasts the zonal controller and high-performance compute SoC processor market will grow at a CAGR of 17% between 2028 and 2031.”
Anwar continued, “Renesas is a top three supplier of automotive processors and is leveraging decades of experience with its fifth generation R-Car X5H SoC that will scale with the requirements of an SDV. By leveraging the 3-nm process, the R-Car X5H SoC allows the automotive industry to implement a multi-use solution set that can be used across the vehicle platform with optimized power budgets. Combining this with the RoX SDV platform, Renesas can offer a software-first, cross-domain approach that will shorten the time-to-market for the automotive industry.”
Availability
The R-Car X5H will be sampling to select automotive customers in 1H/2025, with production scheduled in 2H/2027. More information about the new devices is available here.
A blog on the new R-Car X5H is also available here.
