As software becomes the primary driver of innovation in advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) and in-vehicle infotainment (IVI), the hardware under the hood is undergoing a fundamental overhaul.
When Ford unveiled its Universal EV Platform in August, it highlighted the new zonal architecture at the heart of it. The architecture is all about replacing fragmented, inflexible hardware in cars today with software that can be updated or upgraded using over-the-air (OTA) updates.
Doug Field, Ford’s head of EV design and digital systems, said at the launch that this approach is key to keeping pace with software-first competitors such as Tesla and Rivian, which have been on the front lines of the shift to software-defined vehicles (SDVs) in recent years.
Making the Shift to Zonal Architectures
To compete, Ford and other traditional car companies are overhauling vehicles from the inside out. They’re shifting from domain-based architectures — where each function runs in a separate control unit — to zonal architectures.
The new model moves more of the computing power in the car out of electronic control units (ECUs) and into a smaller suite of high-performance computer modules, each serving a specific physical zone of the vehicle. The modules connect to a central computer to streamline communication, reduce complexity, and slash costs. This arrangement removes more of the heavy, bulky, and increasingly costly wiring throughout the vehicle.
Ford said the new architecture strips out close to a mile of wiring from the EV platform compared to its previous generation. In terms of the software, the architecture gives it the flexibility to add a wide range of new “innovations in the interior,” said Field, former VP of engineering at Tesla, where he played a pivotal role in the development of the Model 3.
He added, “The reason I came back to Ford was I wanted to figure out how we could combine the innovation of the startups like Tesla and Rivian with the industrial might” of Ford.
Design Complexity Challenges
However, this shift introduces technical difficulties. One of the challenges is the complexity of integrating all the hardware and software in the vehicle without compromising on safety or reliability.
Bala Mayampurath, VP and GM in the automotive business unit at Analog Devices, said rewiring everything requires high-speed, low-latency connectivity. He oversees the company’s Gigabit Multimedia Serial Link (GMSL) technology, which is primarily used to connect cameras, radar, and sensors at the edge to high-performance controllers clustered in each zone. The automotive SerDes solution is currently deployed on the road by more than 25 global OEMs and 50 Tier-1 suppliers.
I reached out to Mayampurath to dive into the differences between the domain and zonal architectures and the challenges of supporting real-time connectivity in cars. We also discussed the decline of traditional “tiers” in the automotive supply chain.
Check out the video above for Part 1 of the interview.
