Modified Firmware-Based Boot Synchronization and I/O Isolation for Vehicle Heterogeneous Multiprocessor Systems

The automotive industry is advancing towards Software-Defined Vehicles (SDVs), where vehicle functionalities are dynamically determined and updated via software, enabling rapid feature deployment and integration with cloud-based services. This paradigm shift necessitates a software-centric architecture that supports continuous evolution and scalability, posing new challenges in embedded system design. Modern embedded systems must handle diverse tasks under strict timing constraints. Heterogeneous multicore SoC designs, integrating high-performance application processors with real-time micro-controllers, offer enhanced efficiency and responsiveness. However, integrating these cores presents technical hurdles like boot synchronization and inter-processor communication(IPC). This paper addresses these challenges by proposing a firmware-level approach to redesigns the boot synchronization mechanism to ensure reliable Cortex-M initialization, restores synchronized IPC using RPMsg, and implements static I/O resource partitioning through firmware modification. The results show an improvement in the boot system reliability of the i.MX8 platform when using recent board support packages.