On 64-bit and roadmap alignment

By Romain Saha
Strategic Alliances Manager
Blackberry QNX
 

One of the coolest things about my job is getting to see all the silicon roadmaps. OK, I’m a nerd. That is not a surprise to anyone I’m sure. Still, there’s a lot of amazing innovation going on. You just haven’t heard about. Yet. And you won’t hear it from me. Sorry.

Except maybe that the embedded world – at least in the areas we play – is going 64-bit. Pretty much already gone 64-bit actually. Intel architecture has been 64-bit for as long as I can remember. ARMv8 is almost exclusively 64-bit. It’s here. It’s real. You can buy it. Pretty much everybody has it.

Graphics is another area that is moving fast. The latest embedded GPUs are really impressive. I know of one chip that actually has two full-blown GPUs on a single die. The things I’m seeing on the bench are amazing. Light-years ahead of where we were only a generation ago.

Roadmap alignment is key for us. We need to make sure our products sing with our silicon partner’s technology. We need to make sure customers can take the latest SoCs and build the things stuff the world wants.

One of the things the world wants these days is a digital cockpit - a unified experience across multiple displays in the cabin.  That is happening today but it takes two SoCs to do it, one for cluster and one for infotainment system. It also takes space, power, cabling, connectors and inter-processor communication. Hassle. Lots of hassle I bet.

The obvious dream is to eliminate all this cost and complexity and just use a single SoC for both. Easy. Except digital instrument clusters and infotainment systems are different. Very different.

Infotainment systems need lots of horsepower. They use lots of memory. Navigation systems alone can drive addressing past 4 Gigabytes. Huge state diagrams. They also need lots of eye-candy. GPU performance is key. Complicated indeed.

Digital instrument clusters need incredibly smooth graphics performance but are relatively simple otherwise. Except that they are safety critical. Enter ISO26262 certification. Overlay that with making sure what you think you are rendering is actually what gets displayed. If the screen says P(ark) and the car is in R(everse) people get hurt. Or worse. Clusters are complicated too.

What do you need to make all this work? For sure you need a 64-bit safety-certified embedded OS. You need a hypervisor with the ability share graphics across virtual machines. You need ISO26262 top to bottom as well as a way to ensure cluster rendered output matches the intended output. And you need an SoC with the juice to make it all happen. That’s a lot. No wonder people think the single chip digital cockpit is still a dream.

Crossroads - INNOTRANS 2016

Terry Staycer
Global Business Development Manager 
BlackBerry

Readers of this blog might be interested in hearing how demands for software safety and security are growing not only in automotive, but in other transportation areas as well – specifically, the railway industry.

 

Last month in Berlin, the 11^th annual largest global railway industry event took place.  It was a smashing four-day success in terms of attendance and powerful discussions.   I was honored to attend this event. Overall, the hot topics revolved around improving mobility issues, digitization in rail passenger and freight transport, and technology for digital services.  Safety and security  remain key points of concern.   

QNX's hardware partner, MEN Micro, introduced Internet on trains to ease passenger communication and increase convenience.  However, that comes with increasing risk in terms of bad actors' being able to hack into a rail network.  It is critical to ensure that rail systems are at their most secure and that there is no potential violation to a train.
 

Here is a summary of some other key takeaways from what is the leading trade fair for transport technology:

Evident Re-Focusing

There is a re-focusing of development regarding interlocking and signal control among many of the big rail players such as Alstom, Bombardier, GE, and many others.  Application code, hardware, electronics, and sensors are being outsourced. The rail industry is maturing like the automotive market.

SIL 2. All the way

Customers are pursuing requirements from European and Chinese regulatory commissions, and increasingly those requirements are emerging as SIL-2, and not the anticipated SIL-4.  With these lower Safety Integrity Levels (SILs), the level of system failure increases. Of course customers are still asking for SIL-4, but this is an interesting trend to note.

Security is Critical

Security is a maturing requirement.  At the recent Deutsche Bahn Cyber Security Congress security was a top priority, and it was a hot topic at Innotrans as well. Some of the questions emerging about the security include: If there is a cybersecurity violation, how long does it take to recover? And, how does one architect a system for resiliency to cyberattacks?

Fail Safe vs. availability
Fail safe is good, but high availability is a demand. This topic dovetails into the statement above. Systems must be available in a sense that requires redundancy and fail safe. QNX is well positioned to address this trend with a microkernel based operating system architecture that delivers high-availability and reliability, making it perfect for mission-critical operations such as rail safety. 

China and North America Expansion

China was the most represented company outside of Germany.  The Chinese high speed rail network will span 25,631 KM by 2030. China will boast a total track length of 120,000 KM by 2020.  In addition, North America will invest over $9.8 Billion per year  towards modernization continuing until 2022. Signaling, locomotives, and rail cars have the highest priority.

It is exciting to watch these trends develop and see which new ones will emerge.   

Already looking forward to Innotrans 2017!