Accelerating Software-Defined Vehicles and Safety Processing with NXP S32G3 Processors

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The S32G family of vehicle network processors just doubled in size with today's production launch of the S32G3 series offering up to 2.5x the performance, memory and networking bandwidth as the S32G2 series. The new S32G3 processors are package pinout- and software-compatible with the S32G2 processors, allowing for a customer design to scale ~10x in performance to support multiple product tiers or increase product performance over time. The S32G family now scales from a triple dual-core lockstep microcontroller to a quad dual-core lockstep microcontroller + octal high-performance microcomputer, offering a processing range of 3.9k to 36k DMIPS.

S32G2 vs S32G3 performance and compatibility

The Need for Speed (and More)

As the automotive industry shifts to domain and zonal architectures, cross-domain functional integration drives the need for more processing and memory, as well as isolation domains for freedom from interference. The S32G3 processors address processing needs with up to four lockstep pair of Arm® Cortex®-M7 microcontroller cores and up to eight Cortex-A53 application cores (which can be optionally cluster lockstep for four pairs) and increasing the frequency by 30% to 1.3 GHz. System RAM was increased up to 20 MB to support more and larger microcontroller applications and the isolation domains were doubled to 16 domains. Additionally, to support the higher number of cores and applications, system and watchdog timers were increased.

Being vehicle network processors with network acceleration, the S32G3 network capabilities were also enhanced for higher vehicle data bandwidths. The low latency communication engine (LLCE) supports up to 5 Mbit/s CAN FD traffic on all 16 interfaces and the packet forwarding engine (PFE) supports up to 2.5 Gbit/sec on all three Ethernet interfaces.


Feature S32G234M S32G233A S32G254A S32G274A S32G378A S32G379A S32G398A S32G399A
Package 525 FC-PBGA, 19 x 19 mm, 0.8 mm pitch
Arm Core Cluster 1 - 1x Cortex-A53 @ 1 GHz 2x Cortex-A53 @ 1 GHz 2x Cortex-A53 @ 1.3 GHz 4x Cortex-A53 @ 1.3 GHz
Arm Core Cluster 2 - 1x Cortex-A53 @ 1 GHz 2x Cortex-A53 @ 1 GHz 2x Cortex-A53 @ 1.3 GHz 4x Cortex-A53 @ 1.3 GHz
Applications DMIPS - 4600-5990(*) 9200.11980(*) 12000-15500(*) 24000-31100(*)
Arm Real-time LS Cores 3x Cortex-M7, 400 MHz 1x Cortex-M7, 400 MHz 3x Cortex-M7, 400 MHz 3x Cortex-M7, 400 MHz 3x Cortex-M7, 400 MHz 4x Cortex-M7, 400 MHz 3x Cortex-M7, 400 MHz 4x Cortex-M7, 400 MHz
Real-time DMIPS 3900 1300 3900 3900 5200 3900 5200
DDR - LPDDR4 / DDR3L 32 bit (Up to 4GB)
System SRAM 8 MB 6 MB 8 MB 15 MB 20 MB 15 MB 20 MB
NVM-IF Octal DDR NOR, eMMC/SDXC NAND
AI / ML - Arm Cortex Neon:
16 GFLOPS 		Arm Cortex Neon:
32 GFLOPS 		Arm Cortex Neon:
41.6 GFLOPS 		Arm Cortex Neon:
83.2 GFLOPS
PCIe 1x PCIe 2.0 (2 lanes) 2x PCIe 3.0 (2 lanes)
Ethernet Acceleration Packet Forwarding Engine (PFE)

2 Gbps @ 64B forwarding
3 ext ports 		Packet Forwarding Engine (PFE2)

3 Gbps @ 64B forwarding
3 ext ports
Accelerated
Ethernet Ports (PFE) Automotive
Network Acceleration 		2x 1 G/100M
1x 2.5G/1G/100M 		3x 2.5G/1G/100M
Low Latency Communication Engine (LLCE)

CAN FD x16 / LIN x4 / FR x1 		Low Latency Communication Engine (LLCE2)

CAN FD x16 / LIN x4 / FR x1
Non-Accelerated IF

CAN FD / LIN / FR

Gb ETH / USB 2.0
SPI / I2C

4 / 3 / 1

1 / 0

6 / 5

4 / 3 / 1

1 / 1

6 / 5
Timer 12 FlexTimer, 7 System Timer, 7 Watchdog Timer 12 FlexTimer, 13 System Timer, 12 Watchdog Timer
ADC 2x 6-ch SAR ADC, 12-bit
Temp Range -40 to 105°C (Tj=125°C)
S32G3 Enhancements over S32G2
(*) Cortex-A53 DMIPS performance based on 2.995 DMIPS/MHz measured on S32G2 silicon

Accelerating Software-Defined Vehicles

S32G3 processors are being used by carmakers for central vehicle compute in software-defined vehicles (SDVs) to host vehicle services, integrate cross-domain functions (virtual ECUs), provide secure gateway functionality and manage vehicle-wide over-the-air (OTA) updates. The combination of Arm Cortex-M7 and Cortex-A53 processor cores is attractive to host a combination of real-time functions and applications, including safety-critical applications that can run on safety-certified operating systems and hypervisors while leveraging hardware isolation called eXtended Resource Domain Control (XRDC) and support for ISO 26262 ASIL D functional safety needs. The networking accelerators (LLCE and PFE) offload the processor cores from managing data streams and packets and can be used for accelerated intrusion detection and prevention systems (IDPS). The hardware security engine (HSE) supports public key infrastructure (PKI) cryptography with hardware acceleration to manage over-the-air updates within the device and across the vehicle. In some cases, dual S32G3 processors are used in vehicle computers for further isolation between vehicle services and secure gateway functionality, further showing their versatility.

GoldVIP for S32G3 is a vehicle integration platform that integrates NXP, open-source and partner software to provide an out-of-the box solution for rapidly developing software and prototyping a vehicle computer. It includes a hypervisor with multiple virtual machines, Linux and support for the K3s lightweight Kubernetes environment for vehicle services deployment. Additionally, it supports AWS cloud services leveraging AWS IoT Greengrass and AWS IoT FleetWise to streamline vehicle-to-cloud support, along with OTA services from Airbiquity for a cloud-enabled, out-of-the box experience.

Ideal for Safety Processing

S32G3 processors are also being used for safety processing or as a domain controller for ADAS or autonomous vehicles because they offer a high level of safe processing with the Cortex-M7 and Cortex-A53 cores, as well as support for multi-Gigabit Ethernet and four lanes of PCI Express Gen3 support which can interface directly and efficiently with perception processors. In addition to built-in functional safety circuitry and a companion VR5510 ASIL D power management IC (PMIC), the S32 Safety Software Framework is available to streamline safety software development. The S32G3 performs functions such as safety checking, redundant decision making, domain control and vehicle actuation with these systems. With the S32G3, safety processing performance can be taken to the high level needed for modern ADAS/AV applications where traditional ASIL D microcontrollers get to their limits. The S32G family is attractive to carmakers for its compatible scalability that can provide safety across fleets and into the future.

S32G3 Target Applications

Design Today with S32G3 Processors

The S32G3 processors have strong enablement support with evaluation and reference design boards, as well as software, tools and partner ecosystem. The automotive-grade Reference Design Board 3 (RDB3) and GoldBox 3 are hardware platforms for desktop/lab and in-vehicle prototyping/testing respectively. Design information is provided by NXP, including schematics, bill-of-materials and layout information to help accelerate customers' hardware designs.

As mentioned previously, the S32G GoldVIP offers out-of-the-box software integration for rapid development, along with the individual software components. Software development is supported by NXP's S32 Design Studio IDE and tools, along with the FreeMASTER™ run-time debugging and visualization tool.

Additionally, the S32G3 processors are supported by an ecosystem of partners that offer solutions such as training, hardware, development tools, operating environments, applications, cloud services and more. You can start to develop applications for S32G3 today with boards available through NXP and distribution partners and software available from the S32G3 page.

S32G3 Partner Ecosystem

Key S32G3 Takeaways

The S32G3 series of processors extend the range of the S32G2 family by adding four new processors today that are in production with hardware and software available for your evaluation and development, supported by a strong partner ecosystem. The S32G3 processors are ideal for vehicle computer and safety processing applications, but they are versatile and are expected to be used in other high-performance automotive processing applications such as gateways and domain controllers, as well as being in adjacent markets such as transportation and industrial.

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Author

Brian Carlson

Brian Carlson

Director, Global Product and Solutions Marketing, NXP Semiconductors

Brian Carlson is responsible for global marketing of automotive processors and solutions at NXP Semiconductors. He focuses on enabling new innovations that can create new automotive industry business opportunities. He has over 30 years’ experience driving leading-edge, computing and communications products, with roles in product development, technology marketing, product management, and business development. He served as vice-chairman on the MIPI Alliance board of directors where he led the mobile charge into adjacent markets including automotive and IoT. Brian holds a Master’s of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from Southern Methodist University.