NXP recently reached a major milestone by shipping its two millionth FlexRay transceiver. This milestone comes in less than a year of announcing our one millionth transceiver shipment. With this achievement, we uphold our industry leadership in in-vehicle networking (IVN) technologies by being the only chip provider to ship over two million FlexRay Physical Layer-compliant transceivers.

In August of 2009, NXP announced that it reached the 1 million milestone for shipped FlexRay transceivers, an accomplishment that took the company three years to achieve. Since then, NXP has shipped an additional 1 million FlexRay transceivers to automotive OEMs. This clearly indicates the rapid increase in the implementation of FlexRay in-vehicle networking technology among car OEMs globally. NXP continues to invest in this technology and will enhance its FlexRay portfolio later this year with new products.

With the broadest automotive transceiver portfolio in the market, NXP has taken the lead in providing the best-in-class FlexRay solutions and driving standardization across the industry through its work with the FlexRay Consortium and key partners, who have driven innovation in the industry. NXP's FlexRay transceiver was first road tested by BMW with its 2006 BMW X5, the first series production car with a built-in FlexRay system for active suspension. In 2008 this was followed by the fifth-generation-BMW 7 series, which uses up to 11 FlexRay node transceivers. More recently in June 2010, NXP's FlexRay technology was adopted by Audi for its new Audi A8.

Having passed the FlexRay Physical Layer Conformance Test -- the industry standard for FlexRay products -- NXP's FlexRay transceivers offer excellent Electro Magnetic Compatibility (EMC) performance as well as high Electro Static Discharge (ESD) protection. They actively monitor system performance using dedicated error and status information (readable by any microcontroller), as well as internal voltage and temperature monitoring. They also help to reduce CO2 exhaust through advanced power saving modes and very low current consumption in Standby and Sleep mode.

Increasing demands for higher bandwidth, real-time capability and reliability were the driving forces behind the design of FlexRay. FlexRay is used for high-speed data communication in automotive electronics networks and enables the development of innovative, next-generation systems that help the automotive industry take another step towards zero emission and zero accident driving. It also helps counteract the increase in cables as more and more systems are connected in the car, reducing weight and the use of raw materials. Although initially envisioned as an enabling technology for automotive X-by-wire (drive-by-wire, steer-by-wire) applications, it is now also being adopted for other applications such as reducing CO2 emissions, improving manufacturing efficiencies, safety regulations and the convenience features.

Related links

• Driving Efficiency: Body Networks
• NXP FlexRay portfolio
• NXP announces one millionth shipment (August 2009)

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