July 30, 2012 -- Mentor Graphics Corp. today announced that Mazda Motor Corp. has chosen the software to verify its network-bandwidth usage. The VNA is a tool to design primarily CAN, but also LIN, networks in a vehicle and facilitate a mathematical way to calculate the worst-case scenario on a CAN bus. Mazda's use of VNA has enabled significant improvements in network efficiency and reliability.

Mazda has developed its new-generation technology, "Skyactiv technology," to achieve its vision of delivering driving pleasure as well as outstanding environmental and safety performance in its vehicles. The CX-5, one of Mazda's latest products, features h Skyactiv technology and is now available to the global market.

Mazda has its unique CAN stack in its vehicle-networking systems and has been using its own, in-house CAN network-design tool. To introduce Skyactiv technology, Mazda shifted its existing tool to the Mentor Graphics software VNA to insure its network configuration would work under the worst-case conditions. During the tests that Mazda conducted, several networking issues were analyzed and were able to be improved upon. In particular, by entering the network data generated from itsr tools into the VNA, Mazda was able to analyse the network usage and identify which messages on the bus caused problems.

The VNA tool has powerful optimization features to load the network more than 90% of available bandwidth. In Mazda's case, its engineers used the analysis from VNA to optimize and verify that the network bandwidth is utilized to an increased level but is not over-stressed. This procedure increased the network utilization and significantly reduced the testing requirements and time. Moreover, what was learned by the VNA tool could then be applied to new network additions and the VNA flow Mazda implemented to verify its networks made the networks significantly more efficient and reliable.

"Migrating from an in-house design environment to Mentor Graphics Volcano Network Architect-based design environment moved smoothly and it reduced the testing requirements and time significantly," said Tetsuhiro Yamashita, Staff Manager, Vehicle Development Division, Vehicle System Development Department, Mazda Motor Corp.

Posted by: John Miklosz