The car manufacturer received a notice that the microcontroller product that was developed over the years and was originally scheduled to be produced for 10 years is about to be discontinued (EOL), and that it is using this component - nothing is worse than this. It’s up. However, over the past few years, several microcontrollers and microprocessors that have been quite commonly used in automotive systems have been discontinued due to product integration and product line reductions by semiconductor suppliers.
In the past, manufacturers who were affected by this shock generally had two choices: once all the purchases were made before the production was discontinued, otherwise the product was redesigned. A one-time purchase may cause the problem of funding freezing. As for the redesign, it is fairly simple to simply support the different components by simply adjusting the board layout, but choosing a new microcontroller series requires a lot of software writing and testing time.
Software compatibility is a major obstacle when choosing a different microcontroller family. Most companies have invested heavily in software development, testing, and verification. Therefore, when you convert your design to a new architecture, you often need complex and costly software migrations. If this conversion occurs in the middle of the product lifecycle, manufacturers must be extra careful to ensure that compatibility issues do not occur between hardware platforms.
Seeking a third option
For example, an engine control system manufacturer recently found itself facing a situation in which components were shut down. The manufacturer found that if the original program code that had been in use for 15 years was ported to a completely new structure and subjected to comprehensive functional testing, it might take a lot of manpower to invest years. Moreover, since the previous software team had already made other plans, it had to hire additional staff to do the work. After an assessment of the time and expense of this architectural change, the manufacturer began looking for a program code solution that would be compatible with its existing systems.
The "third choice" solution is to use a non-volatile FPGA, such as LatTIceXP2, plus a third-party intellectual property (IP) core that is compatible with existing microcontrollers. LatTIce's partner, Digital Core Design (DCD), has a microcontroller core that is very similar to the manufacturer's requirements. Therefore, DCD proposes to modify the existing core to match the peripheral settings of the discontinued components (Figure 1).
The manufacturer insists that the new solution must be exactly the same as the original system. Includes external and internal timing, processor functionality, and even the same binary code that can be executed without modification; this compatibility requirement even includes all software timing loops built into the original processor program code. On the hardware side, this solution must have the same board area and pins as the original microcontroller and can be connected to the same interface. In addition, you must have high security requirements to prevent unauthorized modification of your configuration.
System solution
The non-volatile LatTIceXP2 FPGA combines SRAM and flash technology and integrates them on the same chip. At power-up, the FPGA configuration is copied from Flash to SRAM in a parallel manner, thus initializing the component and entering normal operation in less than 2 milliseconds (Figure 2).
The fast-start feature makes it easy for non-volatile FPGAs to replace ASSP microcontrollers because applications don't have to wait for the FPGA configuration to be loaded from external memory. Flash-based FPGA logic also has some security features inside to prevent unauthorized reading or modification of internal memory configurations. This also ensures that no unauthorized copying or tampering with the internal flash configuration occurs.
After determining the alternative hardware, the final step is to match the software functionality to the original microcontroller. DCD selects the existing and tested and validated peripheral cores from the company's extensive database to meet most of the needs. However, since a few new peripherals are also used, they must be handled with special care to meet the requirements of the original microcontroller.
Since digital FPGAs do not have analog converters, the biggest challenge for designers is that the original microcontroller has eight analog-to-digital converter channels. To meet this challenge, DCD wrote an IP that uses the same software interface (control and data buffer) to connect to the internal bus and can be connected to a variety of external sequences and parallel ADCs. Then, you only need to select an ADC with the same conversion timing and precision as the original microcontroller.
The last solution the manufacturer used was a new controller unit with the LatTIceXP2 FPGA, ADC components and frequency generator. The PLCC can be directly connected to the manufacturer's PCD and directly replaces the original microcontroller with a pin-to-pin. Since the chip contains boot memory, the number of components on the board is reduced to achieve a smaller final solution.
in conclusion
The replacement of the product will continue to occur in the automotive industry, but there are alternatives to using FPGA plus microcontroller IP. The LatticeXP2 FPGA with fast start-up provides the automotive industry with a safe, small form factor solution that meets longer lifecycle requirements. This microcontroller IP architecture is a fast and cost-effective way to replace existing microcontrollers while maintaining the same software compatibility as the original system design. A pin-compatible solution allows manufacturers to focus more on verifying the IP core inside the FPGA without having to redesign and verify the hardware and software.
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