STMicroelectronics announced that its Stellar family of automotive MCUs is optimally suited for software-defined vehicles (SDVs) due to its multiple ECU integration and high computing power, and that the highest level of samples are currently available and vehicle testing is underway.

On the 19th, ST held a webinar on the topic of 'Stellar Next Gen ST Automotive 32-bit MCUs' via e4ds eeWebinar.

Jin Yong-ha, Deputy General Manager at ST who gave the presentation, mentioned that the Stellar product family is an MCU optimally suited for software-defined vehicles, featuring powerful computing capabilities and wireless software updates via OTA (Over the Air).

The Stellar MCU is an automotive MCU that can seamlessly implement large applications such as autonomous driving, connectivity, infotainment, domains, and zone architectures, going beyond the eco-friendly fields, body, powertrain, and chassis where ST's existing SPC5 MCU is widely used.

The specifications are divided into P, G, and E, and the P and G product families are used according to zones and domains, and specialP is used in BMS (Battery Management System), transmissions, etc., and G is used in gateways. E is used in the widely used analog domains, such as actuators and centers.

The Stellar product family was developed for software-defined cars with OTA and virtualization capabilities, in response to domains, architectures, and new segments that will replace traditional vehicles.

We can provide the highest level of samples capable of pre-development, and vehicle testing is currently underway.

Key features include support for high performance to support various evolving architectures, use of 6 ARM R52 cores, 7 to 16K DMPS, and top performance in fast real-time, safety, and security.

In addition, it provides a secure integrated controller environment through hardware virtualization and can provide an efficient routing accelerator by using an independent subsystem core, the Cortex-M4.

In addition, it provides double the memory space during OTA by utilizing Stellar's PCM characteristics, which are designed so that two cells are represented as one bit.

The most significant feature is that it provides hardware virtualization. Using up to 6 cores, the hypervisor can control n ECUs and virtual machines.

The hypervisor allocates dedicated memory space to each virtual machine or performs bus master operations.

In addition, real-time scheduling enables the real-time OS scheduler and efficient interrupt controller of ECUs.

Compared to ST's existing SPC5 product family, the Stellar family can integrate multiple ECUs and possesses high computing power. Additionally, due to its large memory capacity, it can be selected and used in comparison to the existing SPC5 product to suit the application.