Arm Drives Automotive Innovation with New Processors and Virtual Platforms
The automotive industry is undergoing a rapid transformation, driven by increasing demand for autonomous features, advanced user experiences, and the shift towards electrification. This evolution is creating an explosion of software and artificial intelligence, making vehicle electronics more complex than ever. To keep pace with these changes, a fundamental rethinking of product development is essential.
Today, Arm and its ecosystem are unveiling a series of industry firsts. These include the latest Arm Automotive Enhanced (AE) processors and new virtual platforms, all designed to accelerate automotive development cycles by up to two years.
Next-Generation AE Processors
The next generation of AE processors marks a significant leap forward, bringing Armv9 architecture and server-class performance to the automotive sector for the first time.
“For the first time, we are bringing Armv9-based technologies to automotive, enabling the industry to take advantage of the AI, security and virtualization capabilities that this latest generation of the Arm architecture delivers.”
To meet the growing performance demands of modern vehicles, Arm is leveraging its leadership in the infrastructure market by incorporating server-class Neoverse technology into automotive applications. This is complemented by new Armv9-based Cortex-A products designed for scalability.
The product lineup includes:
- Arm Neoverse V3AE: This brings Neoverse technology to the automotive sector, delivering server-class performance for AI-accelerated autonomous and ADAS workloads.
- Arm Cortex-A720AE: The first v9-based Cortex-A processors are purpose-built for automotive providing industry-leading sustained performance with SoC design flexibility for a wide range of software-defined vehicle (SDV) applications.
- Arm Cortex-A520AE: This processor delivers leading power efficiency with functional safety features, making it suitable for various automotive use cases.
- Arm Cortex-R82AE: The highest-performing real-time processor for functional safety delivers 64-bit computing to real-time processing—a first for this category.
- Arm Mali-C720AE: A configurable ISP optimized for demanding computer and human vision applications.
These innovations are already being adopted by leading players in the industry, including Marvell, MediaTek, NVIDIA, NXP, Renesas, Telechips, Texas Instruments and others.
Arm Compute Subsystems (CSS) for Automotive
Arm is also looking ahead to the future needs of the automotive industry where systems will become even more complex. Safety requirements will continue to increase and a need to consolidate all the compute components and components and standardize them is paramount. Arm CSS for Automotive will provide pre-integrated and validated configurations of Arm AE IP, optimized for performance, power, and area using a leading-edge foundry process. The first CSS for automotive are expected to be delivered in 2025.
Virtual Prototyping for Faster Development
Traditionally, automotive development follows a linear path—processor IP first, then silicon, and finally, software development can begin when hardware becomes available, typically about two years later. Arm is changing this with virtual prototyping on the latest-generation AE IP, allowing software developers to start before physical silicon is available. This innovative approach can accelerate development cycles significantly.
Arm is collaborating with industry leaders such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Cadence, Corellium, and Siemens to provide these virtual platforms and cloud solutions to facilitate earlier, more seamless development across the full software stack. Partners involved in this effort include Autoware Foundation, BlackBerry QNX, Elektrobit, Kernkonzept, LeddarTech, Mapbox, Sensory, Tata Technologies, TIER IV, and Vector.
These announcements mark a crucial step in empowering the automotive ecosystem, creating new opportunities for developers and reducing time-to-market for OEMs, Tier 1 suppliers, silicon partners, and software providers who are building the future of software-defined vehicles on Arm.
