Fujitsu Microelectronics America (FMA issued a new technology backgrounder describing the “FlexRay” networking standard for motor vehicles and the benefits it will deliver to the automotive industry.
Entitled “Taking Full Advantage of the FlexRay Network for Motor Vehicles,” the technology backgrounder includes an overview of the emerging FlexRay protocol, including performance comparisons with existing communications standards such as the Control Area Network (CAN). The paper describes the benefits of FlexRay’s high bandwidth and data rates, redundancy, flexibility, and time-triggered methodology, along with the benefits these features provide for new engine control, passenger safety, comfort and other applications. The paper also describes the frame format, topology, bus signals, and node status transitions in the network protocol; identifies various operational states of a FlexRay node; and details the header, payload and trailer segments of a typical FlexRay frame.
http://www.fujitsu.com/us/services/edevices/microelectronics/flexraynet.htmlhttp://www.flexray.com
- The FlexRay Consortium was formed to drive the adoption of the FlexRay communication system, and is backed by BMW, Bosch, DaimlerChrysler, Freescale, GM, Philips and Volkswagen.
- FlexRay is being developed to enable advanced communication systems for future automotive applications. It is targeted to support data rates of up to 10 Mbps available on two channels, giving a gross data rate of up to 20 Mbps. Key capabilities will include synchronous and asynchronous data transmission; deterministic data transmission with guaranteed message latency and message jitter; and fault-tolerant synchronization with the global time base.