Xilinx Zynq-7000 cuts ADAS cost, time-to-market

At the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) Convergence 2012 conference in Detroit, Xilinx, Inc. unveiled its automotive ARM®-processor based Zynq™-7000 All Programmable system-on-a-chip (SoC) platform, which targets next-generation advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS).

Xilinx said the Zynq-7000 can reduce both cost and time-to-market for driver assistance systems by using programmable system integration to lower bill-of-materials (BOM) and meet sophisticated technical requirements for driver assistance systems – especially image-to-vision and in-vehicle networking requirements.

Current ADAS solutions typically employ multiple chips. Xilinx said its Zynq-7000 is the first SoC family to incorporate an ARM dual-core Cortex™-A9 MPCore™ processing system with tightly coupled programmable logic on a single die. The combination of A9 processing and programmable logic dramatically increases performance for processing-intensive, real-time ADAS applications. It also enables greater system integration for bundling multiple applications, further reducing BOM.

Automakers and suppliers benefit from IP (intellectual property) and other development aids available in Xilinx’s Alliance Program ecosystem to help accelerate time-to-market, enhance product innovation or reprogram products to meet changing requirements and specifications.

Automakers are bundling ADAS applications such as blind spot detection, lane departure warning, parking assist, collision avoidance, pedestrian detection and drowsy driver drowsiness – to provide multiple safety features at lower cost.  Those ADAS applications combine cameras and ultrasonic sensors with specialized, real-time processing systems to meet image-to-vision requirements.

Xilinx is emphasizing image-to-vision capabilities in all of its markets. Currently image-to-vision systems use multiple chips, which keeps BOM costs high and reduces flexibility to scale across vehicle platforms.

When ADAS developers use Zynq-7000 devices instead of ASSPs (application specific standard products) They can leverage off-the-shelf IP (intellectual property) from the Xilinx ecosystem and add their own IP and algorithms to differentiate themselves in the market without incurring the cost and time-to-market penalties that make ASIC development impractical.

Nick DiFiore, director of Xilinx’s automotive segment, said the Zynq-7000 can accelerate the pace of ADAS technology deployment by allowing engineers to implement a familiar software-based system with closely coupled, fully customized, hardware accelerators that deliver image processing performance with low power consumption – a combination not achievable with traditional multi-chip approaches.

The Xilinx Automotive (XA) Zynq-7000 All Programmable SoC is qualified to meet stringent temperature, quality and reliability requirements for automotive applications.

“Consumer demand for driver assistance applications is strong and growing but continues to be held back due to high manufacturing and development costs,” said Mark Fitzgerald, associate director of Strategy Analytics global automotive practice. “To overcome this, it is vital to ‘right size’ the underlying components through increasing integration and to create common platforms that can be customized for a variety of ADAS applications – this will lower unit costs, increase economies of scale and shorten development cycles.

“By integrating more and more into fewer and fewer chips, customizable solutions hold the promise of addressing these requirements of automotive manufacturers to develop a new generation of ADAS applications available across more of their cars.”

“The Xilinx Zynq-7000 All Programmable SoC is a great programmable platform for upcoming automotive driver assistance applications that require intensive real-time video processing, parallel execution of multiple advanced algorithms and versatile interfacing with sensors and vehicles’ communication backbones,” said Davor Kovačec, founder and CEO of Xylon. “The abundant performance and reprogrammability of the Zynq-7000 devices enables us to design SoCs that outperform competing solutions and which enable a new level of system differentiation through a combination of hardware-accelerated video inputs from multiple camera inputs and the ability to quickly adapt to ever changing sensor setups and interfacing.”

Availability

Availability of the fully qualified XA Zynq-7000 devices is scheduled for the second quarter of 2013. Developers can get started on their designs today using the commercial grade devices available today. Xylon’s LogiADAK Zynq-7000 SoC Automotive Driver Assistance Kit will be available in December 2012.

Other posts you may be interested in reading:

1. Xilinx adds FPGAs optimized to reduce system cost
2. IMS Research sees ADAS data driving up MCU demand
3. Xilinx launches XA Spartan-6 FPGA targeted design platforms to shorten development time