Infineon and Marelli collaborate to drive innovation in Zone Control Units with AURIX TC4x MCU family
The collaboration leverages Infineon’s AURIX TC4x microcontrollers to enhance zonal architectures, enabling faster data routing, secure software updates, and innovative lighting controls for next-gen vehicles.
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The collaboration between Infineon and Marelli combines the two companies' automotive expertise, using Infineon's latest AURIX™ TC4x microcontrollers to develop innovative Zone Control Units (ZCUs).
This collaboration combines the two companies' automotive expertise, using Infineon's latest AURIX™ TC4x microcontrollers to develop innovative Zone Control Units (ZCUs). Designed for new E/E architectures, Infineon's AURIX TC4x family extends the functionality of automotive microcontroller units (MCUs) for safe and secured processing. The MCU family supports high-speed communication interfaces such as Multi-Gbit Ethernet and PCI Express, as well as new interfaces such as CAN-XL and 10BASE-T1S. This provides carmakers with outstanding performance, data throughput and flexibility when implementing next-generation E/E architectures.
“Marelli and Infineon have a long history of working together and the joint development of our ZCUs is another significant step forward,” said Ravi Tallapragada, President of Marelli's Electronic Systems business. “With Infineon's contribution, Marelli is well positioned to strengthen its role as a partner to carmakers venturing into zonal architectures. This collaboration allows us to offer market-leading products that enable the implementation of software-defined vehicles and build on our industry-leading position in ZCUs.”
“We are proud of our proven and strong collaboration with Marelli, it underlines our shared commitment to excellence and innovation,” said Lars Wemme, Senior Vice President Product Line ADAS, Chassis, E/E Architecture at Infineon. “With our new microcontrollers, we are helping Marelli drive its innovative solutions and become a pioneer in the growing OEM zone control market.”
By using Infineon's AURIX TC4x, Marelli has built a ZCU platform with important functions that are beneficial for the development of advanced software-defined vehicles:
- Data Routing Engine: Ensures communication with ultra-low latency and improves the efficiency and speed of data transmission in the vehicle.
- Hypervisor Integration: Allows for independent software updates, which are critical to maintaining the latest features without system downtime.
- Lighting Control Software Integration: Enables an innovative lighting control system to be integrated into the ZCU, paving the way for future MCU-less lamps.
The AURIX TC4x is a key enabler for software-defined vehicles, providing strong security performance through an enhanced security cluster and compliance with ISO/SAE 21434. The integrated Data Routing Engine reduces CPU load during data transfers, while the hypervisor acts as a virtualization layer that enables the combination of applications developed on multiple operating system platforms on a single AURIX TC4x platform. This, together with the virtualization-enabled hardware protection mechanism, facilitates the integration of different applications and ensures that each has its own allocated resources and requirements.
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