August 23, 2010 -- High end automotives produced these days provide features like electronic stability control (ESC), traction control system (TCS), advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) etc. These features require complex SOCs at heart which can collect, process and transfer data at a fast rate from multiple peripherals.

Safety is one of the major concerns for automotive manufacturers. With complex applications been introduced, there is a higher chance of failure of hardware or software. The designs have to be robust enough so that any failures can be detected and corrective actions be taken. Dual-core based SOCs are also being favored in safety application because of the architectural advantages that they provide.

This article deals with various dual core architectures present in automotive SoCs

Heterogeneous dual-core architecture. Homogenous dua-core architecture. Lock-step mode (LSM). Decoupled parallel mode (DPM).

By Amit Goel and Ankur Sharma. (Goel is a design engineer and Sharma a senior design engineer with Freescale Semiconductor, Inc.)