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NXP BlueBox 3.0 Lets Carmakers Build Safety, Portfolio of Apps

But what if the driver doesn’t respond or is
suffering a medical emergency? The vehicle
must be programmed first to reduce its speed
and then to spot an emergency lane and pull
over — provided there’s room to do so. If not,
the vehicle must be programmed to pursue
what seems like the worst possible option:
making an emergency stop in the middle
of the road.
Hashing out the various scenarios is a
necessary exercise and reminds carmakers
that developing a highway pilot feature
requires more than a processor with a lot
of TOPS or AI/ML capabilities. Automakers
need a development platform that allows
(Source: NXP Semiconductors) them “to test out safety and build end solu-
tions that are safe,” said Örs.

needed for traditional sensors or sensors that we’re not covering yet, BLUEBOX 3.0 VERSUS RIVALS
they can all come in through the richer PCI Express slots.” “NXP, along with competitors, is transitioning from silicon suppliers to
Mark Fitzgerald, director of the autonomous vehicle practice at Strat- platform suppliers in order to move up the value chain,” said Strategy Ana-
egy Analytics, said that BlueBox 3.0 enables “fast prototyping of L2+ lytics’ Fitzgerald. “The BlueBox solution gives developers access to NXP
systems, as developers can focus on their specific solution while using and partners’ hardware and software, and it is a gateway into development
NXP and its partners’ development software. It saves time and money. of ADAS/AV solutions that will include [existing] NXP chips already in
“The same can be said for the development of domain or zonal con- production.” In his view, that would lead to “more sales for NXP.”
trollers within the vehicle — a definite trend for automakers,” he added. Of course, Nvidia already offers similar products, such as the Nvidia
“VW is going this route. All eyes are on them to see if a mass-market DRIVE AGX Developer Kit, which Fitzgerald described as “likely the
OEM can be successful” in keeping up with rapid changes in underlying closest competitor.”
vehicle architecture. Then there is Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Ride Platform. Also, Intel and
Mobileye are working on a full solution with silicon and software as
FROM AVs TO ‘DIFFERENTIATED VEHICLES’ well as internally developed radar and LiDAR, Fitzgerald said.
Carmakers have begun scaling back their initial all-out pursuit of full It remains unclear what specific power consumption advantages
autonomy. Instead, they are investing more energy and resources to BlueBox 3.0 brings. NXP’s presentation does not mention this issue.
enhance advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) and other features. “Though not critical in a development platform, production versions
NXP said that it seeks to provide carmakers with “immediate practi- must be quite power-efficient to meet OEMs’/Tier Ones’ power bud-
cal opportunity to harness compute power for differentiated vehicles.” gets,” said Fitzgerald. “The partnership with Kalray should help. Kalray
The operative word is “differentiated.” claims their power consumption is one-tenth of existing solutions, with
Different OEMs plan to bring different features to next-generation limited to no cooling needs.”
vehicles. These include advanced networking solutions, intelligent
recorders for sensor data, active safety, parking assistance, and driver FROM DEVELOPMENT PLATFORM TO SoCs
assistance. OEMs are also looking to include elements that require more Citing a key aspect of BlueBox 3.0, Örs said, “We’re leveraging existing
autonomy, such as traffic jam pilot, valet parking, and highway pilot. silicon, already available in our portfolio. But [we’re] putting it together
With BlueBox 3.0, NXP is offering “a much wider portfolio of appli- at a system level with multiple devices to give a scalable and flexible
cations” beyond ADAS and AVs, said Örs. “We want them to use the development platform to our partners and customers, such that even-
BlueBox platform to experiment and build their own solutions.” tually, some of these functionalities that are distributed in multiple
The issue for OEMs isn’t just slapping new hardware onto their devices could come into a single silicon device as well.”
vehicle architecture. Their concern is whether they have the right Örs acknowledged that there’s “a lot more horsepower in the Blue-
software and underlying architecture to support such new features. Box than likely needed. Our expectation would be that customers are
More importantly, beyond playing with the new capabilities, they able to build their deployment software [and] improve the efficiency of
must be able to test software by simulating and validating the safety their end system on the BlueBox. Maybe they would come up with their
of new functions. own, more optimized version by using the same pieces of silicon, or
maybe different versions within the same family, and deploy that into
SAFETY VALIDATION [their vehicles] in volume.”
For example, highway pilot enables on-ramp, off-ramp autonomous In other words, NXP’s development platform becomes a testing
highway driving. But for safety’s sake, carmakers must consider numer- ground from which both NXP and its customers can learn. If a leading
ous potential scenarios and build a safety case, proving their vehicles OEM identifies its preferred direction on chips, “their needs are typi-
can handle each task. cally reflected in our future-generation silicon,” said Örs.
When highway pilot is on, the vehicle is essentially driving auton-
omously. What if the vehicle encounters a new construction zone not PATH TO AUTONOMY
marked on the map? What if the vehicle has a catastrophic mechanical Egil Juliussen, a veteran auto-industry analyst, wondered whether
failure? What if sensors become so degraded that the vehicle is driving BlueBox 3.0 is robust enough to address the inevitable evolution from
autonomously blind? Those scenarios are not rare enough to be catego- ADAS to fully autonomous vehicles. Even if OEMs aren’t rolling out
rized as corner cases. The vehicle should recognize such common crises AVs right away, “they are looking for a path to the future — L3 and L4
swiftly and ask the driver to take over. vehicles,” he said.

www.eetimes.eu | FEBRUARY 2021