As the electronic and electrical architecture and functionalities of vehicles evolve, automotive developers are striving to provide features such as Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), In-Vehicle Infotainment (IVI), electrified powertrains, and autonomous driving, while facing the growing complexity of code. To meet these ever-evolving consumer demands, computing must become more centralized, and software is crucial to achieving this goal. The resulting changes in software development, deployment, and management mean that cloud-native development – which has effectively driven down costs, time, and complexity in the cloud infrastructure industry – is more applicable to automotive development than ever before.

However, to quickly and seamlessly meet the demands of today’s software-defined vehicles, a standardized framework is essential. This framework must enhance proven cloud-native technologies that can collaborate at scale with the real-time and safety features required in automotive applications. Moreover, this framework can also benefit other real-time and safety-critical applications, such as robotics and industrial automation.

Chet Babla, Vice President of Arm’s Automotive and IoT Division, stated: “The automotive industry is at a critical turning point, with the entire supply chain, from IP designers to automakers, undergoing revalidation and definition. The automotive industry looks to Arm and its ecosystem to help accelerate the vision of a software-defined future. With Arm’s unique position in the industry supply chain, we are spearheading this development collaboration, designing and providing standards, software, developer resources, and dedicated processing platforms to meet the safety and real-time needs of automotive applications.”

Roadmap to Success

SOAFEE is the result of collaboration among automotive manufacturers, system integrators, semiconductor, software, and cloud technology leaders, developing a new architecture based on open standards for software-defined vehicle development. Additionally, an expert group composed of these leading companies has defined a reference implementation for SOAFEE, making it available as free open-source software for extensive prototyping, workload exploration, and early development. Arm is collaborating with leading commercial solution providers to maximize compatibility and provide faster paths for functional safety design.

Arm’s Cassini and SystemReady projects have achieved standardized cloud-native experiences in edge computing, with SOAFEE building on this successful foundation to introduce cloud concepts to the automotive industry for the first time, such as container orchestration with automotive functional safety and real-time capabilities. The initial version of SOAFEE’s product documentation and reference implementation is now available for download.

Shortening Critical Development Time

The rapid development of the industry requires the development of new automotive applications to be as fast and seamless as possible. The immediate availability of SOAFEE allows cloud developers to leverage their expertise to contribute to the future of mobility built on Arm technology.

Bill Foy, AWS Global Automotive Business Development Director, stated: “The leap in technology is driving the transformation of automotive electronics and software architecture needs, propelling the entire industry into a software-centric future. AWS is committed to collaborating with key industry players like Arm to innovate and address complex challenges through a service-oriented architecture, making the vision of software-defined vehicles a reality. With our collaboration with Arm and AWS Graviton2 cloud instances based on Arm architecture, we provide significant cost savings for our customers, enabling their applications to seamlessly run on the same architecture in both the cloud and automotive edge devices, simplifying the development process for developers.”

Arm has partnered with ADLink to deliver outstanding performance on a new development platform compatible with SystemReady, helping accelerate time to market. This new development platform is powered by Arm Neoverse-based Ampere Altra cores, enabling developers to explore and develop workloads on Arm architecture chips for applications in smart cockpits, ADAS, power systems, and autonomous driving using the SOAFEE reference software stack. The platform consists of a developer workstation and rugged in-vehicle products, which are now available for pre-order and are expected to launch in Q4 2021.

· The AVA Developer Platform is a high-performance, 32-core scalable computing system built for lab development, capable of running autonomous workloads. It allows developers to fully utilize accelerator hardware to complement high-performance CPUs.

· For in-vehicle prototyping and testing, the high-performance AVA-AP1 features an 80-core configuration, providing higher CPU performance and additional IO capabilities, including a safety processor for in-vehicle execution using real sensors.

Unique Industry Position Combined with Industry Support

Arm Leads the Transformation to Software-Defined Vehicles

Riclef Schmidt-Clausen, Vice President of CARIAD at Volkswagen Group, responsible for smart cockpits and vehicle bodies, stated: “The realization of software-defined vehicles is happening much faster than expected, and the necessary infrastructure is being developed rapidly. Meanwhile, the entire industry faces significant challenges, including achieving software portability across a wide range of hardware platforms and ensuring that cloud-native software architectures can be smoothly deployed to heterogeneous edge platforms. As a pioneer driving this new evolution, CARIAD is working closely with Arm to address critical technical challenges and lay a solid foundation for a software-defined future.”

The functionality of software-defined vehicles is becoming a trend across many industries, and solutions integrating SOAFEE and new development platforms can also fit other application markets, including robotics for healthcare, manufacturing, and logistics. In the automotive sector, software-defined capabilities will provide safe, new in-vehicle experiences and functionalities to meet consumer demands and expectations. More importantly, it will open new revenue streams and opportunities for interaction with customers for automotive manufacturers, Tier 1 suppliers, software vendors, and cloud service providers.

In addition to AWS, ADLink, Ampere, and CARIAD, this initiative has received broad support from leading companies across the supply chain, including Apex.AI, Continental, Green Hills Software, Linaro, Marvell, MIH Alliance, Red Hat, SUSE, Woven Planet, Zing Robotics, and others. Thanks to Arm’s unique position in the realm of hardware-software synergy, the automotive industry is turning its attention to Arm. Arm and its ecosystem are investing resources to provide a secure and real-time aware cloud-native paradigm for automotive development, helping to make the vision of software-defined vehicles a reality.