NEW WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS standards, new multimedia standards and new digital services will increasingly find their way into the future automobile. Today's infotainment systems are only partly suitable for this purpose. A corresponding software system environment, which is scalable and can remain stable over many years has been created by Siemens VDO Automotive AG with top level architecture (TLA).
One of the greatest challenges for automotive producers in the development of their infotainment systems is the different product life cycles of automobile and entertainment electronics. While cars are replaced by new models approximately every six years, in the case of entertainment electronics the next generation of products is usually on the shelves after six to 12 months — some with new standards or digital services. In order to make these different product life cycles compatible, the electronic structure used must be kept open for future mobile telephones, audio and video systems and their technical standards. With its TLA, Siemens VDO Automotive has successfully started series production of a flexible and open system platform that makes it possible at any time — even after the start of series production — to create updates and supplements.
The TLA system architecture consists of several hardware and software levels that are separated from one another, but closely interlocked. The basis is a modular hardware platform with large computing power, which in the future will continue to offer a high working speed and extended functions. The first series application currently uses a 64-bit processor with 128 MB memory. This TLA architecture is being deployed for the first time in the infotainment system of the new 5 series of BMW.