NXP Semiconductors has launched the OrangeBox automotive-grade growth platform, which integrates all kinds of NXP wi-fi applied sciences, from broadcast radio, Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth, to safe automotive entry with Extremely-Wideband (UWB) and Bluetooth Low Power (BLE), and 802.11p-based V2X.
The OrangeBox is a single, safety enhanced, modular growth platform that gives a unified interface between the automobile’s gateway and its wired and wi-fi applied sciences. By doing so, it supplies a method for next-generation vehicles to speak securely with the world round them.
At this time’s vehicles are extra related than ever, using a wide range of wi-fi applied sciences to supply drivers with every little thing from infotainment to superior security options. Nevertheless, these applied sciences are distributed all through the automobile’s structure, creating a wide range of challenges that shall be exacerbated as increasingly connectivity options are added, in addition to increasing the cyber-attack floor.
OrangeBox unifies these present and rising exterior wi-fi interfaces right into a single, security-enhanced connectivity area controller, which then connects to the safe automobile gateway by way of NXP high-speed Ethernet. This consolidated, turn-key method works to scale back growth effort, optimizes the motion of knowledge throughout a number of communication interfaces, permits constant, state-of-the-art safety safety to be utilized to all visitors coming into the automotive, and eases the deployment of V2X and cloud purposes akin to over-the-air updates for software-defined automobiles.
Designed as a modular platform, OrangeBox supplies OEMs and Tier-1s with the pliability to adapt to numerous regional necessities for mobile connectivity and V2X, in addition to allow in-field updates essential to sustain with altering applied sciences. This helps speed up time-to-market, reduces complexity and supplies an entire system reference design prepared for utility deployment.
By consolidating automotive wi-fi applied sciences right into a centralized area controller with a high-speed connection to the automobile gateway, we’re making a single pathway for the automobile to seamlessly connect with the remainder of the world. Not solely can this assist to scale back prices and streamline growth, it addresses a important piece of the puzzle for data-enriched automobiles that require centralized, safe connectivity.
—Dan Loop, Vice President and Basic Supervisor for Automotive Edge Processing at NXP
The OrangeBox growth platform integrates main applied sciences from NXP, together with a complicated purposes processor, a software-defined broadcast radio tuner, Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth. It additionally consists of safe automotive entry with BLE and UWB, in addition to 802.11p-based V2X, each secured by licensed EdgeLock discrete NXP safe parts. Assist for 4G LTE or 5G mobile and GPS connectivity can be included. It makes it simpler for automakers to persistently apply state-of-the-art cloud-managed safety applied sciences, akin to next-generation firewalls, to knowledge visitors coming into or leaving the automobile.
The central processor of the OrangeBox is an i.MX 8XLite purposes processor working a unified Linux-based software program platform to handle the automotive wi-fi connectivity. It consists of an NXP gigabit Ethernet connection to the central automobile gateway, permitting different automotive techniques to extra simply leverage the advantages of built-in wi-fi connectivity.
The OrangeBox automotive growth platform is anticipated to be accessible to prospects in 1H 2023.
