Renesas adds to its series of R-Car system-on-chips

Renesas Electronics Corporation, a supplier of advanced semiconductor solutions, added a new family to its popular series of R-Car system-on-chips (SoCs) with the R-Car Gen3e. Featuring six new members, the new R-Car Gen3e series of SoCs offers a scalable lineup for entry to mid-range automotive applications that require high-quality graphics rendering.

This may include integrated cockpit domain controllers, in-vehicle infotainment (IVI), digital instrument cluster, driver monitoring systems, and LED matrix light.

The new devices extend the successful R-Car Gen3 SoC products with increased CPU performance up to 50k DMIPS and 2GHz speeds to help carmakers navigate demands for continuous user experience, security, and safety improvements.

Renesas provides Winning Combination solutions featuring the R-Car Gen3e devices to shorten development time and reduce bill of materials (BOM) costs. Customers can combine the R-Car Gen3e devices with Renesas’ high-accuracy timing ICs, power-management products.

“With the growing popularity of applications such as augmented reality navigation and AI-based digital automotive assistants, OEMs and Tier 1s need to balance the skyrocketing demand for larger, higher-resolution displays, and high-performance chips with rising BOM costs and longer development times, ” said Naoki Yoshida, VP Automotive Digital Products Marketing at Renesas.

Yoshida added: “The new R-Car Gen3e devices and reference solutions offer a seamless and cost-effective migration path, providing full compatibility and easy integration with Renesas’ current R-Car Gen3 SoCs to make it quicker and easier for customers to bring their automotive-grade applications to market.”

Features include:

Increased CPU performance — up to 2GHz for the R-Car M3Ne, R-Car M3e, and R-Car H3e devices
On-chip real-time Arm Cortex R7 CPU to eliminate the need for an external vehicle controller combined with a Renesas PMIC, reducing overall BOM costs
Reduced development times with reference solutions for fast boot, HMI, and functional safety
Board support packages updated with the latest versions of the Linux and Android operating systems

Reference solutions:

Pre-integrated software enables higher application integration, for example for 2D/3D cluster HMI, welcome animation, rear-view camera, and surround view applications
VirtIO technology allows developers to easily add the reference solutions to existing applications without changing the existing Linux or Android application
Supports ASIL-B system safety requirements for applications, such as telltale monitoring and camera freeze detection, as well as for true hardware separation in non-hypervisor cockpits
The R-Car Consortium (RCC) partner ecosystem includes system integrators, middleware/application developers, and operating system and tools vendors, providing innovative solutions for the connected Car, ADAS, and gateway markets that enable customers to reduce development time and accelerate time to market for new products.