NXP Releases New S32K3 Microcontroller (MCU) family
NXP Semiconductors has launched the S32K3 microcontroller (MCU) family, the newest addition to its S32K product line. The S32K1 family, released in 2017, marked an important turning point in addressing software’s central role in automotive development.
The new S32K3 family, designed for automotive body electronics, battery management and emerging zone controllers, continues to simplify software development with an enhanced package that spans security, functional safety and low-level drivers.
“Software development is one of the central challenges in modern vehicle development and the S32K3 MCU family is designed to help customers meet it,” said Ed Sarrat, director of product management, Automotive Processing at NXP. “It accelerates development with free automotive grade drivers, simplifies security and over the air updates, and streamlines safety compliance.”
The S32K3 expands NXP’s S32 automotive platform from gateway and domain control into zone control and edge nodes. Plus, it enables software reuse among multiple applications to reduce the complexity of vehicle software development and ease the burden for Tier 1s and carmakers.
The S32K3 security solution includes the hardware security engine, designed to anticipate the ISO/SAE 21434 standard still in development and future OEM requirements. Beyond the hardware, NXP provides its firmware and crypto driver, aiming to reduce the cost and complexity of engaging with third-party providers. The firmware maximizes the performance of the hardware security engine, blocks rogue access to protect the integrity of the security subsystem, and is field upgradable to address evolving cyber security threats.
Customers will benefit from S32K3‘s system-level approach to functional safety including safety framework software, a core self-test library, and hardware features including lock-step cores, and clock/power/temperature monitors which ease compliance with ISO 26262 requirements. Also, the S32K3 is being announced with the NXP FS26 safety power management IC. The combination includes the software driver, reference design and joint safety documentation to further accelerate customer development timelines for safety applications.
S32K3 is designed for secure over-the-air software updates. The smart memory design enables updates to be downloaded during normal runtime, while automatic address translation functionality eliminates the need for software reconfiguration. Together, these features enable an instant switchover to the new software version after reset, and the original software is preserved as a rollback option.
