Fujitsu Microelectronics introduces Autosar 2.1-compatible driver for automotive onboard microcontrollers

Bangalore: Fujitsu's large-scale integrated circuit (LSI) manufacturer Fujitsu Microelectronics Asia Pte Ltd today announced the development and launch of a new microcontroller driver for its MB91460 Series of high-performance 32-bit automotive microcontrollers.

Jointly developed with Elektrobit Corporation of Finland, the new driver is compatible with Release 2.1 of AUTOSAR (acronym for AUTomotive Open System ARchitecture), the open software architecture for automobiles from the AUTOSAR automotive software standards consortium, a standards consortium for automotive electronics and software.

Chiefly active in Europe at first, with the publication of Release 2.1 of its specification at the end of 2006, the consortium concluded Phase 1 of its development plans. During the period from 2007 to 2009, the consortium has started to focus on Phase 2, in which new features inclusive of safety features will be incorporated into the specification. Fujitsu Microelectronics and Elektrobit are both premium members of AUTOSAR.

The new microcontroller driver will be available from Fujitsu Microelectronics and Elektrobit from July 18, 2008.  When used with Fujitsu Microelectronics' microcontrollers, this new driver will offer customers a greater degree of code reusability for automotive onboard applications already developed, and greater efficiency when developing automotive software.

The new microcontroller driver will be exhibited as part of an automotive cockpit product demonstration at Automotive Technology International 2008, to be held from 23 July to 25 July at Makuhari Messe, near Tokyo.

As electronic control technology becomes more pervasive and the number of electronic components increase, the software that controls these components is becoming more complex and larger, leading to mounting costs for manufacturers of vehicles and electronic control units (ECUs).