| The Fully Networked Car, A Workshop on ICT in Vehicles |
A B S T R A C T |
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| Speaker: |
Dr. Christian Thiel
OASIS SiliconSystems AG |
| Session 6: |
Network Platforms |
| Session Moderator: |
Russell Shields, ISO TC-204 WG16, Ygomi LLC |
| Title of Presentation: |
MOST – Further Development of the ICT Communication Backbone |
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MOST is a networking technology that can transport all multimedia signals that occur in a modern car. It has been developed by MOST Cooperation, an association of nearly all car makers of the world and their tier 1 and tier 2 suppliers. Only 3 years after its first market introduction, MOST is implemented in over 30 car models. It is the backbone of their ICT systems. The challenge of the future will be to integrate non-automotive technologies seamlessly into the car. This contribution describes how MOST can help significantly to achieve this goal.
Although widely implemented, not all the features that MOST offers are used yet. One that offers interesting possibilities is MOST’s capability to transport Ethernet frames transparently. This way you can do over MOST whatever you can do over Ethernet or Wireless LAN without having to change the software. This feature allows IT technologies to be seamlessly integrated into the car. MOST combines the embedded world of the car and the world of PCs and IT.
MOST is continuously being developed further. Most important for mass market application is ease of use. Therefore a higher integration and encapsulation of the network interface is required. A new architecture called INIC has been defined to grant this. It also introduces a new inter-chip communication standard called MediaLB. It very much like MOST allows to transport all kinds of multimedia data from one chip to the other. But other than MOST or PCI, a MediaLB interface is so simple that semiconductor companies are even willing to integrate it on consumer ICs. This way these chips get prepared for seamless connection to MOST and integration into the car. MediaLB is key to solve the problem to get mass market hardware into the car. OASIS proposes MediaLB as royalty-free standard to the industry. A lot of semiconductor companies have already adopted MediaLB.
With applications like high-end audio, high definition TV or intensive exchange of data with the outside world a need for higher bandwidth will come up in the years to come. Therefore the speed of MOST will be increased while maximum backward compatibility is maintained.
Last but not least, the market will see a diversification in the Physical Layers. While some car makers head for a high-speed optical transport medium, others require copper cables to meet their production needs. The INIC architecture offers a modular structure that allows different implementations of the technology while always using the same core technology. The applications are not affected by this. They can be used in a standardized way all over the industry – a precondition to integrate consumer or IT applications into the car.
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