congatec supplies SMARC 2.0 for digital cockpit designs
congatec has partnered with Luxoft to offer a next-gen automotive platform with SMARC 2.0 Computer-on-Modules (CoMs). The conga-SA5 is the first, official, supported module for the Automotive Reference Platform (ARP) co-developed by Intel and Luxoft for digital cockpit designs. The ARP enables functions head unit display, cockpit occupant monitoring and advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), to be clustered.
By using a standards-based SMARC 2.0 CoM, there is low NRE cost for the core with scalability, from low-cost to premium performance, says congatec.
The platform uses an Intel Atom E39xx processor-based SMARC 2.0 module from congatec in combination with an Intel Cyclone V SoC FPGA with integrated Arm cores and MAX 10 FPGAs. This, says congatec, provides OEMs with design flexibility for extra connectivity options and hardware encoded preprocessing tasks. The platform allows multiple functions to be hosted on a single system, including ADAS through video data analytics on the basis of deep learning algorithms and artificial intelligence (AI) as well as occupant safety systems such as driver awareness sensing, navigation, passenger infotainment and rear-seat entertainment.
“Together with Intel and Luxoft, we are accelerating the mainstream trend of multifunctional digital cockpit systems to operate on a single piece of hardware,” explains Martin Danzer, director of product management at congatec.
Mikael Söderberg, senior technical director, automotive at Luxoft says: “We have created a flexible and powerful software platform on which both OEMs and their suppliers can build the digital cockpit systems of the future.”
The congatec SMARC 2.0 modules are interchangeable and support multiple devices and architectures. The platform offers four independent on-board display interfaces with support for additional displays via expansion slots. Two HMSC connectors provide massive high-speed I/O extension capabilities. Expansion boards are available through the partner ecosystem, supporting all major existing and emerging automotive wired and wireless connectivity standards, says congatec. An example is the dedicated vehicle interface processor (VIP) expansion slot that accepts multiple architectures. A premium automotive analogue/digital radio and onboard DSP are also design capabilities.
The conga-SA5 based ARP is supported by Luxoft’s PELUX / Qt Automotive Suite Digital Cockpit software platform, a Linux-based, open source software platform that enables the flexible integration of third party applications into cars and minimises the effort and cost for manufacturers deploying Linux based digital cockpit systems.
congatec offers its SMARC 2.0 module conga-SA5 with the Intel Pentium N4200 (four cores), the Intel Celeron N3350 (two cores), the Intel Atom x7-E3950 (four cores) and the Intel Atom x5-E3930 (two cores).
