NXP BlueBox 3.0 Development Platform Defines Safe Cars

NXP Semiconductors announces BlueBox 3.0, a new and expanded version of NXP’s flagship secure automotive high-performance computing (AHPC) development platform. BlueBox 3.0 is designed for software application development and verification before chip devices are ready, providing a flexible way to address user-defined vehicles, safety Level 2+ (L2+) autonomous driving, and evolving vehicle architectures that will drive connectivity Revolution in the car. Heterogeneous acceleration through a combination of centralized compute modules, securely integrated high-performance NXP processors, expanded I/O connectivity, and Kalray MPPA processor-based PCIe card expansion; BlueBox 3.0 provides designers with the ability to accelerate Solutions for system development cycles and speed to market.

The focus of automakers has shifted from the challenge of fully autonomous vehicles to the immediate use of computing power to create differentiated vehicles. User-defined cars allow consumers to add new functionality to today’s smart, connected devices. NXP BlueBox 3.0 provides a rich development foundation to help designers deal with differentiation, safe L2+ autonomous driving mass production, and related automotive network architectures.

Arnaud Van Den Bossche, Director of Global Product Marketing, eCockpit and ADAS, Automotive Processors Business at NXP, said: “As automotive architectures evolve towards functional domain architectures, addressing more complex requirements through user-defined automotive domains is an important driver. The architecture will provide a server-like approach to automotive high-performance computing. NXP BlueBox 3.0 provides an innovative design foundation for these new automotive network architectures, enabling faster deployment.”

By leveraging NXP’s 16-core Layerscape LX2160A processor, BlueBox 3.0 delivers twice the processing performance of the previous-generation BlueBox. The increased performance, coupled with expanded I/O interfaces, greatly enhances the intelligence and connectivity of new vehicle architectures. In addition, processing power can be used for mmWave radar, vision and lidar signal processing for advanced sensor fusion applications, as well as perception, decision prediction and path planning. Kalray Coolidge™ MPPA™ (Massively Parallel Processor Array) processors that provide scaling options for artificial intelligence and machine learning acceleration.

NXP’s BlueBox 3.0 platform integrates NXP’s S32G processor to provide secure automotive networking, reliable security processing, and system-level ASIL D compliance checking. Leveraging its long-standing experience in the safety field, NXP has spearheaded a high-performance computing initiative for safe vehicles, designed to leverage the combined efforts of a close-knit ecosystem of partners to support system designers. BlueBox is the central processing and connectivity hub at the heart of the program.

NXP and Kalray have worked closely together to deliver the BlueBox 3.0 Software Development Environment (SDE) with integrated Kalray MPPA™ processors. The collaboration provides a common hardware and software platform for creating secure, reliable and scalable AHPC solutions. In addition to Kalray, BlueBox 3.0 will be supported by a strong ecosystem of partners that can help engineers achieve rapid development. NXP’s BlueBox 3.0 partners include: dSPACE, Embotech, Edge Case Research (ECR), eProsima, Green Hills Software (GHS), Intempora, Micron Technology, MicroSys, Real-Time Innovations (RTI) and Teraki to help engineers accelerate Product launch.

Advantages developers can get from BlueBox 3.0

A flexible and extensible platform that allows designers to extend the performance and scope of their designs.

With rich on-board I/O connectivity, designers can easily add or change mmWave radar, vision, and lidar sensor capabilities.

Leverage the integration and support available in the BlueBox 3.0 SDE and NXP’s eIQ Auto machine learning toolkit to improve performance on accelerator solutions (e.g. Kalray Coolidge® MPPA®)

Continuing the consistent development path on BlueBox 2.0, coupled with scalable processing power and software compatibility, enables designers to create and continuously update system designs for a variety of user-defined applications and vehicles.