> FPGA in Automotive Systems

Nowadays the FPGA technology increasingly penetrates the traditionally conservative automotive market. A number of electronic systems in modern cars grows, and it is a common estimate that automotive electronics now accounts for over 20% of the vehicle’s cost.

Besides traditional under-the-hood applications (i.e. engine control), lots of automotive electronics is applied in the field of entertainment, safety & security, and information & communication. In a vast majority of such systems, the FPGA can play an important role.

There are many reasons that drive automotive designers to turn towards the FPGA. Unmatchable obsolescence protection and managing of digital convergency problem, faster development cycle, reprogrammability and big possibilities for reuse of large HW and SW design portions, are only the main reasons.

Proven FPGA silicon providers offer previously unimaginable low silicon prices, while at the same time, reduce risks and inventory costs for automotive customers. There are now FPGA device families, like Xilinx’s Automotive XA FPGA family, that are fully qualified for usage in automotive systems.

In years that come, FPGA technology will play an important role in automotive applications.

A traditional approach in designing of dashboard electronics, more or less, comes out with a solution shown in Figure x. The central part of this design is ASSP LCD controller driving the LCD display with relevant data. Also there are a handful of standard semiconductor components.

     
      ASSP LCD controller solution

The following figure presents a much more integrated and flexible FPGA solution. For a long time FPGAs have been considered too costly for larger production volumes, but it is not a case anymore.
Presented design has reduced BOM, and consequently, reduced PCB complexity. It uses standard off-the-shelf components from a reliable source. The stock and all related costs can be lowered too. From the price-performance ratio point of view, this design is comparable and even a little bit better than the traditional one.

The FPGA based design can be easily adopted to suit many end customers. Though it supports many different displays and memory types, it is always possible to add new features with very low or none NRE costs. Such flexibility is out of reach of ASSP based solutions.
The FPGA design's portability from one to another device family assures no-risk of component obsolescence. It also additionally generates value through the design and reuse process.
Xylon Automotive reference system embraces the dashboard application example.

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