NXP announced new products this week– NXP S32 computing architecture, MOB10 contactless chip and fingerprent payments.
Connected Car Platform
NXP Semiconductors announced an all new control and compute concept for connected, electric and autonomous cars. The NXP S32 platform is the world’s first fully-scalable automotive computing architecture. Soon to be adopted by both premium and volume automotive brands, it offers a unified architecture of microcontrollers/microprocessors (MCU/MPU) and an identical software environment across application platforms. The NXP S32 architecture addresses the challenges of future car development with a host of architectural innovations designed to allow carmakers to bring rich in-vehicle experiences and automated driving functions to market much faster than before.
Modern cars are a complex mixture of applications and disparate software approaches that present significant integration challenges to the carmaker. Automotive industry estimates reveal there are more lines of code in an advanced vehicle than a modern passenger aircraft.5 This complexity places carmakers and automotive suppliers under tremendous pressure to satisfy market expectations for higher electronic functionality within tightening time-to-market constraints.
NXP’s new S32 platform addresses these challenges with the highest performance MCU in the industry, a smooth transition to MPU performance and an identical software development environment across vehicle applications. The new software development environment allows developers to reuse costly research and development work7 and therefore respond quicker to changing vehicle architectures and intense time-to-market demands. The platform is developed to deliver automotive quality, reliability and ASIL D performance across multiple application spaces.
“Traditional and disruptive automakers, even more than Tier 1s, seek a standardized way of working across vehicle domains, segments and regions to meet increasing performance demands while contemporarily ensuring fast time to market and control over skyrocketing development costs,” said Luca DeAmbroggi, senior principal analyst, Automotive Electronics & Semiconductors at IHS Markit. “A common architecture and a scalable approach can cut development time for critical applications in domains like ADAS, autonomous driving or connectivity from both the HW and the SW perspective.”
How the NXP S32 Architecture Changes Car Development
- Scalability across products – The S32 platform encompasses broadest-in-industry range of performance from small low power Arm® Cortex®-M, Real Time optimized Cortex-R and highest performance Cortex-A class performance classes, with ASIL D capability at each performance level.
- Over-the-Air Updates – The S32 platform allows zero downtime OTA capability with full roll back options to any S32 enabled car domains via a secure gateway and common domain architecture.
- Security – The S32 platform brings the best of NXP’s core security concepts across new SoCs launched in the S32 family, offering scalable solutions that are the benchmark for the automotive industry.
- A common IP set provides a consistent development environment via the S32 SDK. This allows development efforts to be shared across domains and eliminates duplication of multiple software modules.
- Application-specific IP on each microcontroller gives tailored hardware support for key domain requirements like secure gateway, radar, powertrain and motor control.
- A unique technology independent architecture – The complete redesign of NXP IP across the microcontroller families has forged common functionality across technology nodes and consistent hardware and software behavior.
- Artificial Intelligence – The S32 platform will support a range of AI accelerators targeting ADAS applications. These will accelerate algorithms to support functions, such as object detection and classification in the areas of vision, radar and sensor fusion.
NXP Semiconductors y debuted two significant technology breakthroughs at the largest fintech innovation event, Money 20/20, October 22-25, 2017, in Las Vegas. The company showcased its new contactless fingerprint-on-card solution while also demonstrating a new world benchmark for payment card transactions speeds.
Fingerprint Sensors on Payment Cards
The fingerprint-on-card solution gives payment network operators and banks a secure, convenient and fast payment card option to consumers. Coupling dual interface cards with an integrated fingerprint sensor enables faster transactions without the need for end-users to enter a PIN number.
“The result provides a secure and dramatically more convenient way for consumers to make payments. The convenience provided by mobile payment in today’s NFC-based mobile wallets can now be replicated with cards. It is also ideal for use in other form factors and applications such as electronic passports,” said Rafael Sotomayor, senior vice president and general manager of secure transactions and identification business. “The breakthrough reinforces NXP’s commitment to the payment and secure identification space by helping our customers deliver next-generation applications and solutions to the market.”
To ensure a lower barrier of entry for card makers, the company’s secure fingerprint authentication solution on cards does not require a battery and easily fits into standard card maker equipment as part of the broader payment ecosystem. Cards with fingerprint authentication are fully compliant with existing EMVCo point-of-sales (POS) systems.
New Benchmark for Blazing Transaction Speeds
Demonstrating seamless, fast, and smart card transaction experiences, the NXP high-performance platform makes it possible to achieve M/Chip transactions speeds of <200 ms, surpassing the industry requirement of 300 ms.
“This increased level of performance offers flexibility to add new features or higher crypto countermeasures and still meet current industry transaction requirement,” said Sotomayor. “The requirement for faster payment transaction will continue, and NXP is committed to providing the performance to meet these needs and make contactless transactions faster and flawless.”
Contactless Chip
NXP Semiconductors N.V.announced its new, ultra-thin contactless chip module that transforms how passport and identity cards are designed. Measuring just 200 μm thick – roughly four times the thickness of an average human hair – the MOB10 is 20 percent thinner than its predecessor and is ideally suited for use in ultra-thin inlays for passport data pages and identity cards. The MOB10 is the thinnest contactless module available in high volumes today and supports polycarbonate technology, along with new security and durability features. Additionally, the MOB10 is the first ultra-thin platform designed to be compatible with existing production lines so manufacturers can add it without retooling; allowing them to support multiple products without increasing costs or slowing down production.
The new ultra-thin MOB10 is designed to combat electronic document fraud by enabling slimmer and more secure eDatapages, eCovers and ID card inlays that are harder to forge or modify. The ultra-thin profile of 200 μm makes it possible to accommodate new security features and still include the secure microcontroller and its antenna without adding bulk to passports, national eID cards, eHealth cards, citizenship cards, resident cards, driver licenses, and smart cards. For passports, the MOB10 now allows the IC to be moved from the cover of the passport booklet to the personal data page within the inside of the passport. This new feature offers additional security by preventing attempts to peel off or re-insert the IC after tampering. Additionally, the MOB10 is designed to reduce micro-cracks, sustain mechanical and environmental stresses, and is less susceptible to reverse-engineering or other security attacks.
“We are experiencing increased demand for slimmer solutions that can meet the future embedding requirements needed to produce thinner, and more cost-effective identity documents,” said Sebastien Clamagirand, general manager of the secure identification business line at NXP. “As the world’s thinnest contactless chip module, the MOB10 is uniquely suited to answer this need and will empower a new generation of passports and ID cards that are thinner, more durable and even more secure than ever before.”
The MOB10 is designed for high volume and offers higher density per reel. This feature optimizes machine throughput and storage space, so manufacturers of identity documents can reduce cost, operate more efficiently, and deliver more resilient end products. To ensure flexibility in implementation, the MOB10 solution is compatible with ICAO 9303 and ISO/IEC 14443 standards.