You know it’s going to be big, but just what is the future of automotive design? And how fast might that future approach?
Already we’re talking about and creating regulatory frameworks around things like autonomous vehicles, which are still a few years away in any meaningful volumes. So there’s a sense that the die is now cast and the ramp up into the age of smart and connected cars is going to be faster than expected.
Bob O’Donnell, president and chief analyst at TECHnalysis Research and a keen observer of the automotive electronics space, has pulled together some insights in the white paper “Digital Engines for Smart and Connected Cars.”
He writes:
“For many consumers, the traditional driving metrics of automobiles have become less important, while the desire to connect the rest of their digital devices and their digital lives with their cars has significantly increased. Automobiles present some of the most challenging requirements of any device or any activity that consumers engage in, so the need for tremendous processing capabilities is going to make tomorrow’s digital engines as essential as today’s analog ones.”
I asked him whether he thinks the acceleration of these automotive applications will happen faster than we anticipate and if so how the electronics design ecosystem might respond effectively. He said:
“Automakers and top-level suppliers realize that the in-vehicle experience needs to be taken up a level or two in order to attract today’s consumers, and the most compelling way to do that is through greatly enhanced electronics, such as those enabled by ARM’s customers and licensees.”
Here’s the complete white paper and an automotive-podcast interview O’Donnell conducted recently on this topic with Arwed Niestroj, the CEO of Mercedes-Benz R&D North America (Sunnyvale, Calif.), and ARM Embedded Segment Marketing Director Will Tu willtu (Cars are sexy again (podcast).
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