NXP, formerly Philips Semiconductors, today announced the availability of the world’s first FlexRay transceiver, the TJA1080, now in volume production. The TJA1080, together with NXP Fail-Safe System Basis Chips, is now on the road in the new BMW X5, the first series production car with a FlexRay system.

With the high-speed FlexRay network communications system, car makers can introduce advanced features that are transforming safety and comfort in the car. The BMW X5 is the first sports activity vehicle (SAV) in the world to feature AdaptiveDrive, which combines active roll stabilization and electronic damping control to enable a level of safety, comfort and agility unprecedented in its class. The FlexRay system enables AdaptiveDrive to process and transmit very large amounts of data on changing driving and road conditions at extremely high speeds for dynamic control of the anti-roll bars and dampers.

"Vehicle safety is significantly enhanced with the TJA1080, as active safety systems are able to leverage the high-speed interaction between electronic control units in a FlexRay network," said Toni Versluijs, business development manager, NXP. "With the TJA1080 now on the road with the BMW X5, both drivers and passengers can enjoy the enhanced performance and safety features enabled by FlexRay."

Addressing car manufacturers’ need for faster, fault-tolerant communication and flexible and scalable electronic networks, the TJA1080 transceiver supports a wide range of microcontrollers, including the NXP SJA25xx family, which provides an integrated solution for FlexRay applications. NXP is currently the only semiconductor supplier that can offer a complete system solution for FlexRay applications, consisting of microcontrollers and transceivers.

The TJA1080 is flexible and can be configured as a node transceiver or as an active star transceiver with only one device. The result is faster and simplified development of complete FlexRay networks with robust communication due to excellent EMC performance, as well as extensive error diagnosis and protection mechanisms.

FlexRay has become the favored protocol of carmakers for high-end vehicle networks for several reasons. First, it is fault tolerant and time triggered, providing reliable, on-time delivery of messages for safety relevant applications. In addition, FlexRay is flexible and allows for a large freedom of network topologies ranging from point-to-point to both passive-bus and active-star topologies. Finally, it has over 20-fold more gross bandwidth than CAN, the bus used in existing chassis and powertrain applications. The development of the TJA1080 transceiver is the result of NXP’s extensive collaboration with key players in the automotive industry from the FlexRay Consortium. NXP and BMW are founding member of the FlexRay Consortium, and have been leading the development of the FlexRay Electrical Physical Layer specification for years. For more information about FlexRay, visit www.flexray.com.

Availability

The TJA1080 FlexRay transceiver is available now in volume production.

About NXP

NXP is a top 10 semiconductor company founded by Philips more than 50 years ago. Headquartered in the Netherlands, the company has 37,000 employees working in 20 countries across the world. NXP creates semiconductors, system solutions and software that deliver better sensory experiences in mobile phones, personal media players, TVs, set-top boxes, identification applications, cars and a wide range of other electronic devices. News from NXP is located at www.nxp.com.