The Road towards Predictable Automotive High - Performance Platforms

Due to the trends of centralizing the EIE architecture and new computing-intensive applications, high-performance hardware platforms are currently finding their way into automotive systems. However, the Systems-on-Chip (SoCs) currently available on the market have significant weaknesses when it comes to providing predictable performance for time-critical applications. The main reason for this is that these platforms are optimized for average-case performance. This shortcoming represents one major risk in the development of current and future automotive systems. In this paper we describe how highperformance and predictability could (and should) be reconciled in future HW /SW platforms. We believe that this goal can only be reached via a close collaboration among system suppliers, IP providers, semiconductor companies, and OS/hypervisor vendors. Furthermore, academic input will be needed to solve remaining challenges and to further improve initial solutions.