AURIX™ for British MCUS

As the global market leader in automotive semiconductors, Infineon continues to shape the innovation path of the future of mobility.

Extending its leading AURIX™ microcontroller family, Infineon has introduced a new generation of AURIX™ TC4x series 28-nanometer microcontrollers (MCUS) for electric mobility, ADAS, automotive E/E architectures and economical artificial intelligence (AI) applications.

The first AURIX™ TC4x samples are already being used in major customer designs.

Starting this month, Infineon experts will publish 1-2 AURIX™ TC4x technical articles each month, detailing the various functional modules to help you quickly learn about AURIX™ TC4x.

History of Infineon AURIX™

TriCore™ core architecture since its birth in 1999, has experienced four generations of single-core versions of the MCU, AURIX™ is based on TriCore™ core multi-core architecture of the MCU.

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The first generation AURIX™ TC2x, launched in 2014, integrated up to three TriCore™ cores.

TC2x series microcontroller integrated security management unit SMU, for the safety management of each module inside the microcontroller, power supply PMIC chip TLF35584 in addition to complete the power supply, but also can interact with the microcontroller. With SafeTlib™ software, you can self-check and monitor whether the single chip is running normally, and trigger a security mechanism in case of an anomaly to make the system enter a safe state.

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The second generation AURIX™ TC3x, introduced in 2018, integrates up to six TriCore™ cores, taking SCM performance to a new level.

AURIX™ TC3x series has excellent real-time performance, all models can achieve the highest level of functional safety ASIL-D, integrated information security hardware encryption module, and powerful interconnection interface, making it particularly suitable for many automotive applications.

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The next generation of the AURIX™ TC4x series, launched in 2021, provides a path up the ladder for the leading AURIX™ TC3x series.

It features the next generation TriCore™ 1.8 core, as well as an expandable, performance-enhancing accelerator suite. These include the new Parallel Processing Unit (PPU), a SIMD vector digital signal processor (DSP) that addresses the needs of a variety of AI topologies, including a variety of use cases such as real-time control and radar post-processing. The scalable and highly compatible design of the product series enables users to adopt a common software architecture, thus greatly saving platform software costs.

Overview of AURIX™ TC4x application areas and features

AURIX™ TC4x is targeted at a wide range of automotive applications, including a strong need for functional integration in E/E architectures based on domain control and zone control, supporting the development of electric mobility and autonomous driving through safety systems. Infineon's AURIX™ TC4x offers enhanced connectivity, including advanced functional safety and information security, further strengthening Infineon's leading position in highly reliable and safe automotive electronics.

In addition, the new SOTA (Software Upgrade over the Air) capability helps meet OAF needs for fast and secure vehicle-to-cloud connectivity, enabling on-site updates and diagnostics and analytics during vehicle use. The new AURIX™ TC4x series MCUS support high-speed communication interfaces such as 5 Gbit Ethernet and PCI Express®, as well as new communication interfaces such as CAN-XL and 10BASE T1S Ethernet. The increased network throughput and connectivity gives customers the performance and flexibility they need to implement the new E/E architecture.

The complete AURIX™ TC4x ecosystem

Given the increasing complexity of vehicles and the implementation of artificial intelligence technologies, the AURIX™ TC4x ecosystem has received a great deal of attention to ensure that products are quickly to market and easy to use. Infineon is working with Synopsys to accelerate software development for the AURIX™ TC4x family. The Synopsys Virtualizer™ Development Kit (VDK) for TC4x enables software development at an earlier stage in the design cycle. The Synopsys DesignWare® ARC® MetaWare toolkit for AURIX™ TC4x provides the best compilers, debuggers and libraries and emulators needed to develop software for PPUs.

Other partners will also provide corresponding products and support MATLAB automatic code generation for rapid prototyping. Customers already using existing AURIX™ MCUS will benefit from reduced development time and faster time-to-market thanks to a compatible design that is scalable across generations. Significant hardware and software compatibility enables customers to widely reuse existing TC3x algorithms and ecosystems.

Overview of the main features of the AURIX™ TC4x series

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TriCore™ and AURIX™ acceleration kits deliver high performance computing power and economical AI

Up to 6 TriCore™ v1.8 operating in sync at up to 500 MHz

AURIX™ Accelerator Kit:

Parallel Processing Unit (PPU) - enables AI up to ASIL-D

Data Routing Engine (DRE) - for efficient communication and data processing

● CDSP - digital signal processing for analog sampled signals

● Signal Processing Unit (SPU) - Radar signal processing accelerator

● Information Security Module (CSRM/CSS) - Hardware encryption accelerator

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Memory upgrade

Up to 25 MB of on-chip NVM storage

Zero downtime SOTA is supported through optimized A/B swap partitions and external memory interfaces

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Advanced clock modules and AD conversion add real-time control capabilities

New eGTM timer and high resolution PWM, dedicated Low delay Interconnect (LLI) bus

Faster control loop for motor control and power conversion

GTM compatible with AURIX™ TC3x

Multiple ADC converters, Time Division Multiplexing ADC(TMADC)/Fast Comparator (FC)/DSADC

CDSP/DSEX accelerator

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Enhanced functional safety and information security

Security clusters, including CSRM and CSS, provide enhanced security performance

● Compliant with ISO 21434

● Secure DMA

● Meets ASIL-D standards

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Provides a rich network communication interface for all E/E architecture microcontrollers

● Scalable high-speed communication interface:

■ Up to 5 Gbps Ethernet

■   PCIe

■ 10BASE T1S Ethernet

■   CAN-XL

Data Routing Engine (DRE) - Communication accelerator

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Extensive ecosystem

● Infineon MCAL driver

Reuse existing AURIX™ TC3x algorithms and ecosystems

● Support rapid prototyping with the Synopsys-Virtualizer Development Kit for AURIX™ TC4x virtual prototyping

● Software Development Kit (SDK)

Simplify PPU software development with the Synopsys-MetaWare Toolkit for AURIX™, which includes MATLAB and Simulink, DSP and math libraries, neural network software development kits, and AUTOSAR complex device drivers

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The first AURIX™ TC4x samples are already being used in major customer designs, and each model will be phased into volume production from the second half of 2024.

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What kind of MCU will the car of the future need?

● More potential to make cars smarter

● More efficient processing power by artificial intelligence

● Adapt to new electrical and electronic architectures

● Wider and more secure Internet connections

● Adapt to faster technology iterations

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The AURIX™ TC4x has been created to provide the most attractive upgrade path for the automotive industry.

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AURIX™ TC4x helps usher in a new era for the automotive industry.

Support for new electrical and electronic architectures

● Higher ASIL-D computing power

● Secure network connectivity is greatly enhanced

● Adapt to the new software development model

Electrification accelerates penetration

● Help achieve zero emissions

● Oems are more focused on the development of electric vehicles

● The proportion of pure electric vehicles continues to increase

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Infineon continues to offer high-reliability AURIX™ series MCUS to meet automotive requirements for high stability, high safety and long-term supply security.

● AURIX™ series MCU comprehensive product catalog and flexible scalability for users to upgrade and reduce costs to provide two-way choice of platform development ideas

● Infineon develops and maintains long-term relationships with trusted partners

Security has always been a core competency of AURIX™ series MCUS

● Very high stability greatly reduces the risk of failure

The Tricore™ core and related peripherals provide extreme real-time control performance

● Committed long-term supply guarantee and reliable supply chain management

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AURIX™ TC4x uses a 28nm semiconductor process and introduces RRAM non-volatile storage media (NVM). The process, which Infineon and TSMC have been working on for eight years, will help the TC4x series of MCUS achieve high cost performance and pave the way for continuous iterative upgrades to the next generation of MCUS.

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AURIX™ TC4x focuses on electric vehicles, domain/area controllers, intelligent (assisted) driving, radar, power chassis and other applications in line with automotive trends.

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Thanks to AURIX™ series MCUS with high cross-generation compatibility, users' development experience at TC3x will significantly reduce the porting effort and accelerate time to market.

● Development tools are very rich and consistent

● Good compatibility of software and hardware design

● The security architecture and concept are consistent, and more perfect and powerful

● High reliability as always

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The AURIX™ TC4x offers significant performance improvements in several areas for the next generation of controllers

Higher processing capacity

● Higher Tricore™ core frequency

● Parallel processing unit

● Third generation high performance signal processing unit

● Analog to digital conversion signal post-processing DSP

● Data routing engine

● High precision PWM

Higher safety performance

● Meet ISO26262-2018 functional safety standard ASIL-D level

● Comply with ISO21434 information security standard

● Stronger asymmetric encryption

● Support multiple concurrent symmetric encryption and decryption

Improved hardware virtualization support and isolation features

● Support kernel and peripheral hardware virtualization and isolation

● Each physical core supports up to 8 virtual machines

● Enhanced memory protection and DMA protection

Richer network connections

● Up to 5G Ethernet interface

● Up to 4 100Mbit / 10Mbit low speed Ethernet and support for 10based-T1S standard

● PICe 3.0 interface

● Support CAN XL

● Support MACsec hardware encryption

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AURIX™ TC4x architecture block diagram

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Thanks to AURIX™ TC4x's hardware virtualization capabilities, multiple different ECU functions can be run independently and without interference by deploying virtual machine software on a single TC4x chip. AURIX™ TC4x virtualization will be covered in a future article.

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Infineon has many years of experience in information security development, deploying hardware security modules (HSM) from the first generation of AURIX™ chips. AURIX™ TC4x is now developed in full compliance with the ISO21434 information security standard. At the same time, Infineon has obtained ISO21434 product development process certification issued by an authoritative third party.

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The introduction of the parallel Processing Unit (PPU) in AURIX™ TC4x will help it expand its application scenarios in the embedded AI field. For example, PPU can play a key role in high-security intelligent prediction and intelligent control in multiple applications such as domain controllers/area controllers, ADAS, and new energy vehicles. Stay tuned for subsequent feature articles on the PPU for further information.

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Infineon has built a comprehensive development toolchain and software ecosystem for AURIX™ TC4x. Development tools include compilers, debuggers, integrated development environments (e.g. ADS Limited), virtual prototyping (VDK), model simulation hardware support packages, etc. The software ecosystem includes hardware underlying driver (MCAL), AUTOSAR protocol stack, SafeTlib, information security software, PPU software library, CDSP software library, etc.

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The new generation of power management chip TLF4 series PMIC, which is best matched with AURIX™ TC4x, will also be launched simultaneously to help the safety performance of automotive controllers