Mentor Graphics announced the acquisition of XS Embedded (XSe), a technology leader in the creation of automotive system architectures and hardware reference platforms. XSe has over ten years of direct experience in the automotive electronics design industry across twenty automotive programs that combine hardware and software expertise. XSe brings a pioneering approach to accelerate system design and verification by providing automotive-grade hardware and software to reduce the time to SOP. Mentor is now well positioned to address the cross-functional collaboration needs required to address the trends towards integration of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), Driver Information and Infotainment domains.
Modern automotive systems push the technology envelope with feature-rich embedded systems that combine high-quality graphics, domain-specific audio, multi-media, mobile device integration and connectivity. The design challenges are tremendous with millions of lines of code per vehicle, cross-domain function consolidation, mixed safety criticality, security, and the use of heterogeneous multi-core SOCs. These challenges are exacerbated by extraordinary cost pressures and a traditional development lifecycle for systems that is measured in years while automotive consumer expectations require the latest in technology to be ever present.
“XS Embedded is recognized for its deep automotive domain expertise and unique IP including the AXSB automotive-ready reference board and software modules,” stated Glenn Perry, Mentor Graphics Embedded System Division general manager. “The hardware design and architecture expertise of XS Embedded combined with Mentor’s extensive automotive technology suite, including Android, Linux®, AUTOSAR, Security and Hypervisor solutions, provides greater flexibility while also reducing the time to SOP.”
XSe has pioneered a new approach that provides Tier 1 suppliers with reference platforms that approach A-sample quality. By taking advantage of this unique automotive-ready reference platform Tier 1 suppliers can not only drastically reduce time to SOP, but also improve architectural optimization, the partitioning of software and ultimately reduce design costs. XSe achieves this by partnering with key semiconductor vendors to supply truly automotive-grade hardware, such as XS AXSB based on the Texas Instruments Jacinto 6 platform, and integrating optimized IP including the XS OPTstack® software, a flexible software stack designed to be quickly ported and optimized to underlying hardware.
“By combining Mentor’s Android, hypervisor, security, AUTOSAR & Nucleus solutions with XSe automotive-ready solutions, we are able to address the entire vehicle software infrastructure requirements of the most sophisticated vehicles in design today,” said Rainer Oder, managing director of XS Embedded. “The next-generation ADAS systems are a great example of the need for a unified vehicle software infrastructure and we are proud to be the first to market with an end-to-end solution.”
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