Green Hills and MathWorks automate coding for the Infineon AURIX TC4 family of microcontrollers.
MathWorks, creators of MATLAB and Simulink, and the embedded software safety and security company Green Hills Software have announced new features in Simulink that help engineers produce safety-related applications for Infineon’s AURIX TC4x family of automotive microcontrollers. Specifically, Simulink, the model-based systems simulation software, can now compile and generate code for the microcontrollers and then perform testing on said software using hardware-in-the-loop (HiL) simulations.
“Many of our customers use MathWorks products to create algorithms for embedded systems,” said Rob Redfield, director, business development at Green Hills Software. “Now, these customers not only have an easy-to-use way to run and verify these algorithms on embedded processors, but they also can debug, analyze and optimize their code with safety-qualified optimizing C/C++ compilers and run-time libraries within the Green Hills MULTI IDE.”
The workflow would look something like this:
Automotive engineers would use Simulink to model the hardware and software algorithms of the vehicle. This would include the ability to run virtual simulations of the system. Once the initial simulations were complete, the engineers could generate the code for the microcontrollers. They could then evaluate that code on real-world microcontrollers using those simulations to validate the system.
“The collaboration between MathWorks and Green Hills Software is a major step forward to accelerate the development of safety-critical applications using the AURIX TC4x family,” said Thomas Schneid, senior director of software, partner and ecosystem management at Infineon Technologies AG. “MathWorks and Green Hills Software are two important partners that successfully support our customers in their developments.”
Why Engineers Should Care
Tom Erkkinen, product manager, embedded code generation at MathWorks said, “Green Hills is a leading embedded software vendor that we collaborate with to provide highly automated tools and workflows that comply with rigorous functional safety standards, such as ISO 26262.”
As Erkkinen implied, MathWorks and Green Hills Software have worked together in the past. Namely, in 2021 they launched the MULTI Toolbox for Embedded Coder. This tool, offered by Green Hills, can embed into Simulink and MATLAB models. In this new announcement, it seems that for the AURIX TC4x family of automotive microcontrollers, much of this workflow can be done directly in Simulink.
This is a big deal because as Erkkinen said, “Electric vehicles and automated driving systems have disrupted conventional norms and introduced a generational change in the pace and scope of automotive electronics development.” As a result, engineers will need to produce this code faster and more reliably. The hope is that by simplifying the workflow for this family of microcontrollers, engineers can meet the needs of the industry at the speeds they require.
