The Ethernet AVB Development Kit enables the construction of the first fully open network standard system optimized for automotive audio/video applications.

Xilinx Korea (Country Manager Ahn Heung-sik) January 6, 2012 – Xilinx plans to unveil the world's first FPGA-based Ethernet Audio/Video Bridging (EAVB) network optimized for carrying high-speed data traffic within vehicles at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show (CES). As consumer expectations for high-resolution display graphics in driver assistance, navigation, and passenger entertainment systems rise, so too do challenges regarding content transfer within vehicles. In this demonstration, Xilinx will showcase a new EAVB development kit co-developed with Digital Design Corp. (DDC), a member of the Xilinx Alliance program, providing automotive system designers with frameworks and tools to develop applications for drivers and passengers.

The EAVB demonstration, which enables simultaneous streaming of multi-camera driver assistance and infotainment A/V sources over a single network, can be viewed at the Xilinx booth (#MP25556). In addition, the 3D vehicle surround view demonstration built on the Spartan-6 FPGA also clearly demonstrates Xilinx's continuous efforts toward real-time, multi-camera driver assistance solutions.

Nick DiFiore, Director of Automotive at Xilinx, stated, “The IEEE 802.1 EAVB standard is attracting the attention of many leading automotive manufacturers even though the specification is not yet finalized. It is hard to resist the appeal of a fully open, flexible, and ubiquitous network standard like Ethernet, enhanced to meet the real-time media streaming requirements of automotive systems.” He added, “As a founding member of the AVnu Alliance®, which provides an ecosystem of compatible EAVB solutions for the reliable transmission of audio and video content, Xilinx is further expanding this goal in DDC. This is a natural step in our effort to provide complete vehicle connectivity options that enable automotive consumers to keep up with rapidly evolving consumer information technology.”

The EAVB solution extends the previously released Xilinx Ethernet AVB endpoint LogiCORE® IP into a full network interface solution while providing the flexibility to meet customers' unique application interface requirements. Furthermore, this solution offers maximum integration potential in environments where Xilinx FPGAs are already commonly used. This includes existing infotainment connectivity as well as driver assistance (DA) applications, where the FPGA primarily performs image processing for surround view, blind spot detection, and real-time lane tracking.

Scott Keane, a visual systems engineer at DDC, stated, “Drivers and passengers want higher-resolution display graphics quality, but they also want critical information displayed in real-time so that drivers can make immediate decisions.” He added, “This development kit demonstrates that EAVB can provide passengers with the world’s best audio and video quality while utilizing the same Xilinx FPGA devices already used in numerous driver assistance systems. Since the modular IP included in this kit can be licensed separately, customers can optimize the solution to meet their specific application needs.”

The latest IEEE 802.1 AS, QAT, and QAV standards are fully implemented in the Xilinx/DDC EAVB solution, enabling perfectly deterministic audio/video transmission over 100Mb/1Gb Ethernet LANs with high reliability and low latency. In an automotive environment, this means that various infotainment and DA data content, including system control and audio/video information, can be transmitted using only a single uniform LAN configuration. Furthermore, system designers can scale the total network bandwidth as needed regardless of the network topology established (e.g., star, tree, combination) and reserve up to 75% of the bandwidth at specific connections to maintain the quality of service for media streaming. The DDC IP core includes A/V data packetization facilities, media extraction, media clock recovery and stream reservation protocols, and generic data processing or command/control processing for legacy Ethernet traffic.

In the Xilinx/DDC demo, video data from four cameras is streamed to the FPGA via an EAVB network, and additional DA video and graphics processing can be performed (e.g., 3D vehicle surround view). Additionally, separate infotainment A/V source streaming to a remote display on the same network is executed simultaneously. Low-latency MJPEG video compression was also implemented to further manage network bandwidth.

Spartan-6 FPGA for Automotive
The EAVB development kit is based on the Xilinx Automotive (XA) Spartan®-6 FPGA, which provides leading system integration capabilities and low total cost for the latest high-volume automotive applications. The XA Spartan-6 family features logic cell densities scaled from 3,840 to 101,261, up to 180 parallel DSP MAC engines, and comprehensive I/O function speeds scaled up to 3.125 GHz. Built on 45nm low-power copper interconnect process technology that perfectly balances cost, power, and performance, the XA Spartan-6 family offers efficient dual-register 6-input look-up table (LUT) logic configurations and a rich selection of built-in system-level blocks.

XA is a programmable engine perfectly suited for numerous modern infotainment applications, including infotainment, driver assistance, and driver information systems, and its use is steadily increasing in the latest next-generation systems. With superior reliability and flexibility, XA-compliant devices enhance the driving experience while meeting demanding automotive quality requirements.