STMicroelectronics releases stellar P6 vehicle specification MCU, enabling system integration of electric vehicle platform

•The ultra-high integration supports automobile manufacturers to design the next generation electric drive system and OTA wireless update domain control system

• take the lead in supporting new high-speed vehicle communication protocols

• stellar series is the first MCU that can be mass-produced and verified to support the transformation of the automotive industry to software defined vehicles

STMicroelectronics (st; NYSE: STM), a leading semiconductor company in the world serving multiple electronic applications, has launched a new automotive MCU chip, targeting the upcoming trend of automotive electric drive and the OTA (over the air) wireless update domain control system of the next generation of electric vehicles. In view of the fact that today's cars need to generate, process and transmit a large number of data streams, especially in order to better support the development of the next generation of electric vehicles, STMicroelectronics has launched a new stellar P vehicle specification MCU. This is the first MCU in the industry that can enable vehicle enterprises to integrate the new can-xl on-board communication standard on the 2024 model. This technology can help the new automobile platform better handle and cope with the growing data flow, so that the automobile performance can always be kept in the best state.

Vice president, automotive and discrete device product department, strategic business development Luca rodeschini, general manager of automotive processors and RF products, said: "Stellar P6 automobile MCU is excellent in real-time performance and energy efficiency. It integrates advanced motor control domain, energy management domain and executive functions, ensuring that traditional fuel vehicles and electric vehicles can smoothly transition to the new electric drive architecture mode of software defined vehicles. As the automobile industry starts to develop new automobile platforms for 2024 models, ST is ready to use MCU to support platform development and simplify the transformation process from development to production."

The stellar MCU product family of STMicroelectronics aims to help automobile manufacturers and primary suppliers transform to software defined automobiles. Stellar products now have several series:

Stellar e series ensures fast real-time control and system miniaturization in power conversion applications, and maximizes the advantages of SiC and Gan power technologies in applications such as on-board charging of electric vehicles, DC-DC converters and electric drive inverters.

- stellar G Series MCU is mainly used in the body domain of the vehicle domain control architecture to safely manage data and provide real-time and safe integration functions. This series can achieve excellent software wireless update and low power consumption mode, and send and receive data through a wide range of vehicle communication protocols.

- the newly launched stellar P series vehicle gauge MCU integrates advanced executive control capability and powerful functionality. Stellar P products face the new trend of electric vehicle drive technology and vehicle domain control architecture, which can achieve excellent real-time performance and energy management effect.

Stellar P6 prototype for 2024 models is now available. For enquiries and sample applications, please contact the local sales office of St.

Supplementary information

The next-generation vehicle platform of automobile manufacturers is transforming to software defined vehicles, so as to solve the complexity and performance problems of new functions of next-generation vehicles (electrification, advanced safety, assisted driving, automatic driving). This transformation requires top-down changes to the automobile platform architecture. Major changes include the transition from multiple electronic control units (ECUs) that manage a small subsystem to domain or area controllers that integrate multiple functions. These domain controllers must also solve the problem of software integration of different systems on the whole vehicle. A new generation of vehicle gauge MCU like stellar can achieve higher processing performance and integrate important functions while ensuring the safety and performance of vehicles. In a software defined vehicle driven entirely by electronic systems, stellar can make all systems operate in full synchronization, safely and wirelessly upgrade software, simplify vehicle maintenance, and continuously improve performance.

Technical information

Stellar P6 is manufactured by ST's own wafer factory. It uses high-efficiency 28nm fd-soi technology and has a phase-change (nonvolatile) memory (PCM) with an embedded capacity of up to 20 MB. Developed and tested in accordance with strict requirements for high-temperature working environment, radiation resistance and data storage of automobiles, STMicroelectronics' PCM has a single bit overwrite function that flash memory does not have, which makes memory access faster. In addition, wireless update without downtime is an innovative mechanism that changes the rules of the game. Before the new update software is effective, the method dynamically allocates memory space for the newly downloaded software image to save memory space. During the download process, the rest of the memory continues to execute the running application in real time.

ST's stellar P6 MCU has up to six arms built in ® Cortex ® R52 processor cores, some of which are dual core lockstep operation and some are sub core execution tasks, provide redundancy mechanism for failure protection for applications. These mechanisms enable new products to bring high performance, real-time certainty and upgrade functions to the next generation of vehicle drive systems, motorized solutions and domain control systems. Stellar P6 uses the features of cortex-r52 and firewalls to solve the problem of hardware virtualization (sandboxing) and access resources on demand, which simplifies the development and integration of multi-source software on the same chip, while ensuring the security isolation and performance of applications.

Advanced security measures are implemented at all levels of the architecture to ensure the efficient implementation of ISO 26262 asil-d functions. In addition, fd-soi technology itself has quasi radiation resistance, and provides excellent protection against system unavailability, while ensuring that the chip meets the most stringent safety standards.

The on-chip integrated fast hardware information security module (HSM) adds a dual core lockstep encryption engine, supports ASIL D functional security level information security functions, and can realize enhanced Evita complete security functions. The new product also provides high-speed secure encryption services and secure network authentication to further protect the firmware of manufacturers and the data of end users.