Renesas Launches Next-Generation Automotive SoC
MUNICH, Germany and TOKYO, Japan – November 13, 2024 – Renesas Electronics Corporation announced the launch of its fifth-generation automotive fusion system-on-chips (SoCs). This new generation is designed to unify multiple automotive domains, including Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), in-vehicle infotainment (IVI), and gateway applications, into a single chip.
The R-Car X5H SoC, the first in the R-Car X5 series, is built with the latest 3-nanometer (nm) automotive process technology. It boasts the highest level of integration and performance currently available, allowing Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) and Tier 1 suppliers to transition to centralized Electronic Control Units (ECUs). This shift allows for streamlined development and delivers future-proof system solutions.
This image shows the Renesas’ R-Car X5H SoC.
The R-Car X5H is among the first in the industry to offer highly integrated, secure processing solutions on a single chip, thanks to its unique hardware-based isolation technology. This advanced design allows for the expansion of AI and graphics processing performance via chiplet technology.
Addressing the Challenges of Software-Defined Vehicles
As the top-performing device within the fifth-generation (Gen 5) R-Car Family, the R-Car X5H is engineered to address the growing complexity of Software-Defined Vehicle (SDV) development. The new SoC aids in optimizing compute performance, power consumption, cost, and hardware/software integration. It also ensures vehicle safety. By incorporating application processing, real-time processing, a GPU, AI compute, large display capabilities, and sensor connectivity onto a single chip, developers are empowered to create next-generation automated driving, IVI, and gateway applications.
The R-Car X5H enables AI acceleration of up to 400 TOPS, leading to industry-leading TOPS/W performance. It is also equipped with a GPU capable of up to 4 TFLOPS. It incorporates a total of 32 Arm Cortex-A720AE CPU cores for application processing, delivering over 1,000K DMIPS performance. The system also contains six Arm Cortex-R52 dual lockstep CPU cores, delivering over 60K DMIPS performance with support for ASIL D capabilities without external microcontrollers.
Manufactured on one of TSMC’s most advanced process nodes, the R-Car X5H achieves both top-end CPU performance and a 30-35 percent reduction in power consumption compared to devices designed for a 5-nm process node. These power-efficient characteristics are designed to lower overall system costs by eliminating the need for additional cooling solutions. It can also extend a vehicle’s driving range.
Scalable Performance with Chiplet Extensions
While the R-Car Gen 5 SoCs come with powerful native NPU and GPU processing engines, Renesas offers customers the option to scale up performance through chiplet extensions. For example, combining a 400-TOPS on-chip NPU with an external NPU via a chiplet extension can increase AI processing performance by three to four times or more.
For seamless chiplet integration, the R-Car X5H offers the standard UCle (Universal Chiplet Interconnect Express) die-to-die interconnect and APIs. This feature facilitates interoperability with other components in a multi-die system, even those not made by Renesas. This flexible design approach allows automakers and Tier 1 suppliers to customize their systems, including future upgrades across vehicle platforms.
Mixed-Criticality Processing for Secure Isolation
Safety is the top priority for automakers and their suppliers, even as they demand more performance and functionality. R-Car X5H takes a comprehensive approach to safety, offering hardware-based Freedom from Interference (FFI) technology in addition to software-based isolation. Hardware-based FFI securely isolates safety-critical functions, such as brake-by-wire, from non-critical functions. Safety-critical functions can be assigned their own separate, redundant domains, each with its own independent CPU core, memory and interfaces. This design prevents potentially catastrophic vehicle failures caused by a hardware or software fault from a different domain. The R-Car X5H also includes Quality of Service (QoS) management, which is intended to determine workload priorities and assign processing resources in real time.
“Our latest innovations in the R-Car Gen 5 platform tackle the complex challenges the automotive industry faces today,” said Vivek Bhan, Senior Vice President and General Manager of High-Performance Computing at Renesas. “Our customers seek end-to-end automotive-grade system solutions that cover everything from hardware optimization and safety compliance to flexible, scalable architecture selection and seamless tools/software integration.”
“Our N3A process is optimized for advanced automotive SoCs, with industry-leading 3-nm performance at AEC Q-100 Grade 1 reliability. We are excited to work with Renesas to develop this R-Car Gen 5 platform, and help re-shape the future,” said Dr. Kevin Zhang, TSMC’s Senior Vice President of Business Development and Global Sales, and Deputy Co-COO.
Asif Anwar, Executive Director of Automotive Market Analysis, TechInsights, stated, “The path to the SDV will be underpinned by the digitalization of the cockpit, vehicle connectivity, and ADAS capabilities.”
Scalability with the Fifth-Generation R-Car Platform
Renesas’ R-Car Gen 5 supports the broadest range of processing requirements in the automotive sector. It is suited for everything from zonal ECUs to high-end central compute, supporting entry-level vehicles to luxury-class models. Because the R-Car Gen 5 platform is based on a unified hardware architecture using Arm CPU cores, developers can reuse the same software and tools, including applications from Renesas’ broad line of new 64-bit SoCs and future products such as crossover 32-bit MCUs and automotive 32-bit MCUs.
Renesas plans to sample a new 32-bit MCU series with enhanced security for body and chassis applications in Q1/2025. This will extend its vehicle control portfolio. The MCU series will also be powered by Arm.
Accelerating SDV Development with R-Car Open Access (RoX) Platform
Renesas’ latest R-Car X5H and all future Gen 5 products are designed to accelerate SDV development through hardware and software integration into a comprehensive development platform. The new R-Car Open Access (RoX) SDV platform integrates essential hardware, operating systems (OS), software, and tools. This allows automotive developers to produce next-generation vehicles that support secure and continuous software updates.
RoX provides OEMs and Tier-1 suppliers with flexibility to design a broad range of scalable compute solutions for ADAS, IVI, gateway, and cross-domain fusion systems, as well as body control, domain, and zone control systems.
electronica 2024 Demonstration
Renesas presented a live demonstration of the R-Car Gen 5 development environment at electronica 2024 in Munich, Germany, November 12-15.
Availability
The R-Car X5H will be sampled to select automotive customers in the first half of 2025, with production scheduled for the second half of 2027.
