Modern cars and trucks are evolving into supercomputers on wheels. Millions of lines of code written, checked, debugged and secured to offer safety, security and performance features but also comfort and entertainment options, driving the entire automotive industry forward to provide complex and elegant solutions meant to be invisible for drivers and passengers.
Vehicles today can have approximately 45 processor-based electronic control units (ECUs) running between 100 and 200 million lines of code. This is a sizable jump from a decade ago where average 30 processors were wired throughout the body of a car executing nearly 10 million lines of code1. This unprecedented rate of progress in automotive technology is placing a heavy burden on carmakers and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) for meeting customer expectations around performance, utility and convenience, but also to comply with stringent security and safety standards plus rigorous global emission regulations. The current automotive market demands more innovative electronics and code, expanding both ECU and software breakthroughs.
Delivering on its promise to tackle the cost and complexity of automotive software development, the S32K3 Automotive MCU enters the market with comprehensive ready-to-use offerings: hardware tools, production-grade software packages, and an ecosystem of industry-leading partners. S32K3 MCUs address the latest general-purpose applications demanding high-level safety, security and software requirements, targeting vehicle edge nodes, domain and zone control, and vehicle electrification.
S32K3 Automotive MCU
NXP engineered S32K3 microcontrollers from a strong foundation, their siblings S32K1 MCUs which have been in production since 2016. With the addition of the S32K3, the S32K family now offers improved performance, peripheral capability and power consumption. The S32K144/24/34 MCUs are currently in production and available with single, dual and lockstep Arm® Cortex®-M7 core configurations, respectively. Each combines up to 4 MB of flash memory with over-the-air (OTA) update capabilities, CAN FD, 100 Mbit Ethernet, precision timing and analog features, offered in both standard BGA packages and new HDQFP –reducing the footprint up to 55% compared to standard QFP.
Explore S32K3 MCUs! Start simplifying your automotive designs.
We provide S32K3 MCUs with an extensive package of production-grade software enabling developers to harness its advanced safety, security and connectivity features while helping to minimize software development cost and complexity.
AUTOSAR compliance is increasingly the "entry ticket" for new automotive designs providing a standardized layer between the application software and ECU hardware. Considering this, NXP now offers its real-time drivers (RTD): a unified software package with enhanced and extended ISO 26262 up to ASIL D compliant drivers for S32K3 MCUs and compatible analog SBCs. RTD eliminates AUTOSAR MCAL production license cost and offers a safety-compliant driver package for non-AUTOSAR applications. RTD is configurable with NXP S32 Design Studio for S32 platform (S32DS) or with partner tools.
Both safety and security are must-have features in automotive design nowadays, not only from customers (drivers and passengers) but also from government and authorities pressuring for reaching stringent standards.
To address safety, S32K3 microcontrollers are equipped with safety IP in abundance: lockstep cores, ECC-enabled memories, and a range of hardware and software safety monitors. Also, NXP built the S32 Safety Software Framework (SAF) to give a foundation for ISO 26262 compliance, relieving customers from the complex task of researching the on-chip safety IP and then developing their software drivers and libraries. SAF features six safety libraries and provides fault detection and reaction mechanisms for managing single point and latent hardware faults during boot-up, run-time and recovery. We also offer a Safety Peripheral Drivers package for developers who prefer a lighter version. In addition, NXP put together its Structural Core Self-Test (SCST) library, providing up to 90% diagnostic coverage in ASIL B applications.
To address security, NXP offers the future-proof hardware security engine (HSE) and a security firmware bundle, with the option of being able to be customized to meet OEM-specific requirements. Also, our new Inter-Platform Communication Framework (IPCF) streamlines the communication in multi-core/multi-OS systems. IPCF enables homogenous and heterogenous cores in single- and multi-chip systems to communicate efficiently over shared media without conflicts when accessing shared resources.
Beyond S32K3 MCUs' rich enablement of hardware tools and software packages, NXP collaborated with industry-leading global partners to offer development tools, AUTOSAR software and engineering design services.
With new standards to comply with and new technologies to design for, this S32K3 partner ecosystem helps support customers new to the automotive landscape or current customers that require dedicated technical support for building next-generation domain control, body electronics and battery management systems. Some of our partners are:
Some members of the S32K3 partner ecosystem
The automotive industry is coupled with embedded software development: for each new function, a corresponding ECU must be added together with developed new code. The next generation of cars and trucks will have around 60 processors organized in domain/zonal controllers, running up to 1,000 million lines of code2. Hence, automotive software will increase exponentially, becoming one of the main differentiators from which suppliers must start building competencies to ensure competitiveness as most vehicle innovations are now tied to software.
S32K3 Automotive MCU family is now available for everyone with a comprehensive enablement package, tackling software cost and complexity! S32K3 microcontrollers help engineers design solutions with functional safety up to ASIL D and security features while maximizing software reuse across processor platforms.
1,2 Strategy Analytics, OEM/Tier1 public statements, New York Times, NXP CMI
Toño enjoys doing integrated marketing communications for automotive processors and microcontrollers, focusing on mass-market customers. He holds a bachelor's degree in electronic engineering, earned an MBA, and got certified as a Product Marketing Manager.
Toño is curious about interactions between people and technology.
