Renesas Electronics Corporation, a premier provider of advanced semiconductor solutions, has announced the development of a highly automated driving (HAD) solution kit that delivers high computing performance targeted at automotive functional safety to reduce development time of electronic control units (ECUs).

The HAD solution kit is based on two Renesas R-Car H3 Starter Kit Premier and the automotive control RH850/P1H-C microcontroller (MCU), and therefore is compliant with both ISO 26262 ASIL-B functionality safety standard and ISO 26262 ASIL-D standard (Note 1).

The new solution kit enables system developers to immediately evaluate functions and software in an environment that is similar to the actual development of ECUs, thereby reduces developers’ time and efforts when porting software to the actual ECUs.  The automotive market is moving rapidly to make highly autonomous driving a reality for consumers by 2020. However, this is a challenging path as autonomous driving level 3 and beyond  requires high computing power while maintaining safety and ensuring quality.

During the initial development of autonomous driving systems, OEM and Tier-1 system developers first create prototype systems and test them using PCs. To adapt a prototype system to fit the actual vehicle, features such as low power consumption and high performance, operation under high temperature, and compliance with specific standards such as functional safety and system specifications must all be aligned. Therefore, the step to adapt a newly developed system into the actual vehicle is known to be challenging. The Renesas HAD solution kit supports software development and software verification that Tier-1s and OEMs are using for automotive ECUs. This is being integrated in a robust housing with multiple interfaces that provides rich connectivity close to actual automotive ECUs. 

The highlights of the Renesas product are:

- Powerful HAD solution kit that accelerates software development of mass production ECUs that are necessary to achieve autonomous driving.

- Multiple external interfacess, such as CAN-FD, FlexRay and Ethernet.

- Compliance with high functionality safety standards.

- Multiple interfaces for the development of autonomous-driving systems and built-in data logging function.

Samples of the HAD solution kit are scheduled to be available in February 2017.