Ecosystem Collaborations Bring Full Stack Software Solutions to Develop Leading-edge Automotive Applications From Day One

By Robert Day, Director of Automotive Partnerships, Arm

Built on the new Automotive Enhanced (AE) IP and virtual platforms, the full stack software solutions allow automotive partners to innovate straight away.

March 13, 2024 -- The advent of the software-defined vehicle (SDV) means a complete rethink in vehicle design and development for the automotive industry. Through electrical/electronic (E/E) architecture consolidation in the vehicle, software workloads are getting more complex, which requires innovations throughout the automotive development process. This is why Arm is delivering new hardware and immediate software enablement from day one, which meet the performance, safety and AI demands of modern vehicles and significantly reduce automotive development cycles for a faster time to market.

As part of this, Arm and our extensive automotive partner ecosystem are taking a unique new approach to automotive silicon and software development where new virtual platforms are available at the same time as next-generation leading-edge processors that are being added to the Arm Automotive Enhanced (AE) IP portfolio.

Our EDA and Cloud partners are offering a range of virtual prototyping options, from bare-metal execution on Arm-based cloud and server instances and fast virtual platforms based on new hypervisor technologies for rapid software development, through to accurate virtual prototypes of CPUs and systems-on-chip (SoCs) to explore hardware implementations in more detail. Arm’s success in the cloud through our Neoverse platform combined with the adoption of the new Arm AE IP in vehicles means there is ISA parity between cloud and edge, with both being built on the Armv9-A architecture. However, in order to run software applications on these virtual platforms and Arm-based cloud instances, automotive developers need foundational software stacks to be available to develop on.

“Day one” access to accelerate automotive development

Therefore, Arm has invested and collaborated with our industry-leading ecosystem to enable full stack software solutions that run on the latest Arm AE IP across a range of automotive applications, from zonal and in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) to advanced driving assistance systems (ADAS) and autonomous driving. This gives our partners everything they need to start writing software solutions for SDVs and software-defined functions from day one.

This means earlier, faster and more agile development that significantly improves time to market, accelerating automotive development cycles by up to two years. It also allows our automotive partners to focus on commercial differentiation that matters the most to them, which could include high-value applications and services for SDVs.

The full stack software solutions

Today, we are excited to share a range of full stack software solutions that will be available to run on top of the new leading-edge Arm AE IP and virtual platforms. These include:

• The Foundational Operating System supportthat covers the following:
  • Rich Operating Systemsfor autonomous driving and IVI systems via Linux, Elektrobit corbos Linux, RedHat, Arm EWOAL via SOAFEE and Android Automotive;
  • Real-time operating systems via Green Hills, QNX and Wind River; and
  • AUTOSAR implementations from Elektrobit, ETAS and Vector that often run safety applications and environments.

• The middleware layer that sits on top of the Operating System (OS) to allow for communication inside and outside the vehicle. Examples include:
  • Data Distribution Service (DDS) implementations such as Eclipse CycloneDDS running on both application and real-time CPUs via Zettascale and RTI DDS;
  • Time sensitive networking (TSN) via TTTech and Excelfore; and
  • Over-the-air (OTA) software updates via the E-Sync Alliance.

• Applications and stacks that sit on top of the OS and middleware, which include the following:
  • The Open AD Kit from the Autoware Foundation;
  • Web.auto from Tier IV;
  • ADAS sensor fusion stack from Leddertech;
  • 3D live navigation and autopilot from Mapbox;
  • AI-based speech recognition from Sensory; and
  • Connected car technologies from Tata Technologies.

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More information about what our software partners have to say about their full stack software solutions for automotive markets can be found here.

The role of Arm and SOAFEE

Arm is uniquely positioned to drive this new technology approach for the automotive industry, as we sit at the heart of the world’s largest automotive ecosystem that covers silicon vendors, Tier 1s, vehicle manufacturers, OS vendors and software companies. We are also the driving force behind SOAFEE, which is building vital standards-based frameworks and technologies to enable the SDVs of today and the future.

Many of our partners who are enabling the full stack software solutions are SOAFEE members. The last year has seen a range of technologies, innovations and blueprints supported by SOAFEE that are accelerating the journey to SDVs and forming the foundation of the new full stack software solutions. This demonstrates the value of SOAFEE in supporting the successful development and deployment of software solutions and software-defined functions in vehicles.

Driving unprecedented automotive transformation

The technical scope and complexities of SDVs will not be solved by one company alone, with extensive ecosystem collaboration needed to deliver the scale needed. This is why we are delighted to have a broad range of full stack software solutions available from our extensive automotive ecosystem from day one, so our partners can begin their development using the new Arm AE IP straight away. These are all enabled by the standards-based development driven by SOAFEE for outstanding portability.

This unique approach from Arm will also meet the compute required to deliver on the advances in software and AI that are driving the rise of SDVs and supporting automotive applications. The example list of full stack software solutions above is just the beginning, with many more being added throughout 2024, so stay tuned for more details. These software solutions will play a pivotal role in the ongoing transformation of the automotive industry that is being built on Arm.