ARM announced that Fujitsu Microelectronics Europe has signed a licensing agreement for the ARM Cortex-R4F processor for use in automotive applications including safety and chassis.

The agreement is an endorsement of the ARM architecture in the automotive market as manufacturers endeavour to consolidate their automotive functions into a reduced number of more capable processors.

It has been predicted that automotive semiconductor revenue will grow by an annual compound rate of 7.7 percent between 2007 and 2012 as new and potential applications for the deployment of electronics in current and next generation vehicles increases. Benefits such as adaptive cruise control, lane departure warning systems and monitoring driver fatigue and inattention are examples of driver-assistance safety enhancements that are expected to be widely deployed in future vehicles. Furthermore, numerous applications are emerging in the industrial space where the Cortex-R4F processor could prove to be an ideal fit.

The Cortex-R4F processor features pre-integrated embedded error correction (ECC) and a synthesis option to implement lock step architectures simplifying implementation and aiding IEC61508 and ISO26262 and ISO26262 certification. It features high-resolution memory protection facilities to enable tight control over independent software tasks. These functions are all critical to automotive applications based on the AutoSAR runtime environment and the JasPar Automotive software platform architecture.

In addition to the Cortex-R4F processor, the agreement includes the ARM AMBA Designer tool and ARM CoreSight technology for advanced on-chip debug and real-time trace.

The CoreSight debug and trace technology provides on-chip resources that enable the development of more reliable and higher performance products. Real-time and safety critical applications such as automotive, benefit from the CoreSight technology as it provides software engineers with exhaustive real time data monitoring, code coverage or software performance optimisation capabilities, making ARM processor-based SoC the easiest to debug and optimise.

The AMBA Designer tool simplifies the process of achieving optimal configuration of ARM interconnect and memory controller peripherals for greatly increased system performance and power savings.