[Editor's Note] The paradigm shift from the traditionally hardware-centric automobile industry to software-defined vehicles (SDVs) is rapidly underway. Solutions and ecosystems that accelerate entry into new markets and product development are already being rapidly established. Arm, a semiconductor IP company, is accelerating the realization of SDV by leading the development of an open standard architecture called SOAFEE (Scalable Open Architecture for Embedded Edge). We met with Simon Teng, senior director of Arm Automotive Business Unit APAC, to discuss the matter.

■ Please give a brief introduction to the four business sectors where Arm’s solutions are serviced, along with an introduction to the rapidly emerging automotive solutions.

Arm is divided into the following sectors: △Consumer Technology (Mobile/Home Appliances), △IoT, △Computer Infrastructure (Server/Cloud), and △Automotive. These four sectors each require different IPs and have different market requirements, so they are categorized and supported.

Consumer technology develops IP and related products related to home appliances such as smartphones and TVs, and has the challenge of achieving high performance while considering power efficiency and low power consumption as key considerations. In the IoT sector, low cost is an important point because it must be installed in a large number of edge locations. In the infrastructure sector, there is the greatest demand for high-performance computing (HPC) solutions.

Lastly, automotive solutions are being developed with a focus on functional safety. Arm is adding 'AE (Automotive Enhanced)' to the end of the product name for its IP related to automotive solutions to indicate that it is an automotive solution with verified functional safety.

The vehicle IP is basically ISO 26262 certified, and through diagnostic certification, the system can detect random failures during driving and change settings while maintaining a stable state, functions that are reflected in the IP design.

■ In the automotive industry, which is attempting a paradigm shift to software-defined vehicles (SDVs), Arm is leading SOAFEE to solve the complexity of SDV development. Please explain this.

If you look at the existing development process, hardware design comes first, then software is developed and tested. However, in the case of SDV, a change in the existing method is required.

The concept is to define the software first, then develop it, and then decide on the hardware specifications to match the software and develop it. This concept is the direction we are heading in, but it is also the point where we face real difficulties.

In particular, software development is largely cloud-native. In existing cloud-native developments such as server and mobile, functional safety was not given much consideration. On the other hand, the automobile industry requires real-time control and functional safety because the hardware, automobiles, move very quickly.

Accordingly, the relevant industry needed an approach that took these aspects into account in cloud native development, and the first advantage that SOAFEE provides is that it is about functional safety, and the second is that it applies real-time control to cloud native development methods.

■ What is the size of the companies that have currently joined SOAFEE, and what contribution does the cooperation of these partners make to the development of SOAFEE?

So far, about 100 member companies have participated, and it was launched in 2021. The first goal of SOAFEE is openness. It aims to establish itself as a technology and development standard for SDV, and to enable OEMs, Tier 1 suppliers, and semiconductor design companies to use these standards free of charge, regardless of whether they are SOAFEE members.

In the process of developing technology standards, active collaboration with OEMs, Tier 1 suppliers, and software developers who make up the automotive industry ecosystem is essential. They have been continuously making cars and have a much higher level of understanding of safety requirements than we do.

■ What benefits can using SOAFEE bring to the industry?

There are many cases, but to give a few examples, first, the SOAFEE standard can benefit semiconductor manufacturers in providing a standard interface between operating systems and hardware. If hardware manufacturers and OS companies only use the SOAFEE standard interface, semiconductor manufacturers will not need to port various OSs to their products. It makes sense to eliminate redundant work.

OEMs and Tier 1 vendors can also take advantage of container technology when developing SOAFEE standard-based services and applications. For example, existing software can be reused without code changes even when the OS or hardware platform is changed. This can reduce software development and maintenance costs.

It can also be a great advantage in terms of business models. From the perspective of OEMs and software developers, utilizing the SOAFEE standard when developing SaaS products makes it easier to provide services for automotive platforms.

■ In terms of automotive semiconductors, we are seeking to develop a centralized high-performance architecture. What are the challenges to be overcome in this high-performance embedded computing (HPEC) and what contribution is Arm making?

As the demands for functions in vehicles increase, the high-performance chipsets that follow require large areas, making it extremely difficult to maintain reliable quality. Problems may arise in terms of shock, contact, and heat generation, and the solution to this is process miniaturization, but this also has physical limitations.

Although there is a cost burden, efforts to reduce the area are actively being made in the packaging stage. The most commonly used method is chiplet technology, which can reduce the overall area and also solve reliability issues to some extent.

Packaging such as chiplets can use different process nodes for each die. In the process of integrating heterogeneous chips, the suppliers and features of each die can be different. This has led to a market demand for standardization of communication methods, and related standards are currently under development in the automotive sector. I think we'll be able to use standard communication methods this year or next year.

Arm has a number of interconnect-related technologies and is contributing to strengthening the stability of the Universal Chiplet Interconnect Express (UCIe) standard.

■ The importance of functional safety in SDV is greatly emphasized, but I am curious about the security aspect.

Arm has built an open security authentication system in an open source manner called Platform Security Architecture (PSA), and on the processor side, it creates a safe zone called TrustZone and ensures that important workloads run in this TrustZone.

Since the TrustZone has more power and processes, it is inefficient to process all applications or workloads here. This is a major difference in classifying TrustZone tasks and non-TrustZone tasks according to security mechanisms.

■ Arm’s outlook on the SDV market

The transition to SDV is expected to benefit OEMs, partners, parts suppliers, and software developers, and is receiving significant momentum from the push from these industries. The transition to SDV will proceed rapidly in the future, and the market direction is also the same.

The transition to SDV will also be an opportunity to diversify revenue models and transform into a service provider in terms of business. Mobility can build a diverse software development ecosystem, just like smartphones play a platform role, and it can also reduce the cost of development and maintenance, so this change will become a necessity rather than an option.

Arm is committed to supporting and working to accelerate these trends, investing a lot of our resources and technologies.