These days, drivers and passengers want—and tend to expect—all of the technological comforts of home out on the road. But consumer demand for traditional invehicle infotainment systems like CD players is giving way to products that support downloadable content. Nowadays, cars better be compatible with cell phones, MP3 players, GPS devices, and other portable media platforms.

PORTABLE AND WIRELESS CONNECTIVITY
The latest automotive hard-disk drives (HDDs) now offer 40 Gbytes or more, purely to store multimedia information. Toshiba’s 0.85-in. MK2001MTN, for instance, provides 120 Gbytes, which is just the right amount for tunes and movies alike.

Yet all of this data requires a powerful and flexible database management system (DBMS). With Hitachi’s small-footprint Entier, converged and mobile device application developers can efficiently include sophisticated search functionality in their products. Designed with the limitations of small devices in mind, it features complex text, incremental, conceptual, and spatial searching, plus alias handling.

Last year, Chrysler launched a new option on select 2007 vehicles, the MyGIG hard-drive navigation system, joining similar systems from Mitsubishi and Lexus (Fig. 1). Unlike DVDs and CDs, hard-drive navigation systems provide faster navigation recalculation and better graphics and interfaces. Being an HDD, MyGIG also makes it possible to store and play audio files from the hard drive. It’s like having a permanent iPod in your car.

TomTom and Johnson Controls last year collaborated on a mobile Bluetooth device gateway targeting production 2008 cars (Fig. 2). The unit enables an electronic device, such as a TomTom satellite navigation system, to communicate with a car’s network for innovative and safe navigation. Through Johnson Controls’ voicerecognition technology, users can verbally command the TomTom GO device for greater ease of use. There’s also several intuitive features, such as automatic notification that fuel is low and directions to the nearest gas station.

This year, STMicroelectronics announced a broadcasting chip set for the Sirius Satellite Radio Backseat TV Service. The system delivers live TV from family TV networks to the video screens of select vehicles.

MAJOR MARKET
Coupled with the multitude of networking protocol choices, these developments are forcing car makers, tier one suppliers, and IC manufacturers to rethink the way they deliver automotive infotainment products and services to their customers.

So, what’s the main challenge faced by designers? They must find ways to create consumer-electronics devices with very short life cycles that are compatible with the much longer life cycles of automobiles. Needless to say, the companies involved are more than happy to cash in on a very lucrative market.

According to market analyst iSuppli Corp., worldwide vehicle production will reach 82 million in 2012 while the total market for automotive infotainment ICs will grow from $36 billion in 2006 to $54 billion in 2012 (Fig. 3). Shipments of portable navigation devices will triple from roughly 14 million units this year to about 42 million units by 2012 (Fig. 4). Underlying all of this prognostication is a variety of global interconnect and communications protocols for handling infotainment as well as embedded controls. This includes wired connectivity as well as a burgeoning need for wireless connectivity using Bluetooth and USB protocols.

Two major consortia, AutoSar (Automatic Open Source Architecture) and Jaspar (Japan Automotive Software Platform Architecture), are driving networking protocols. Both groups have the same goals: to drive down software-development costs, improve software reliability, and make automotive electronics much more affordable. In fact, AutoSar’s architecture addresses many of the existing automotive networking protocols.

PLATFORMS AND COLLABORATIONS
Satisfying different networking protocols represents a huge challenge for automotive IC makers. Predicting which type of protocol will require what kind of silicon function is difficult at best, since consumer demands for infotainment features change so rapidly. Furthermore, the life cycles of cars are much longer than the life cycles of the chips going into them.

One solution is to produce platform ICs that support many if not all of these protocols. Another approach involves collaboration with other IC manufacturers, tier 1 suppliers, and automotive manufacturers early on in the design cycle.

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