Starter kit enables rapid software development for auto gateway systems

Renesas Electronics Corporation now offers a new development board for automotive gateway systems. The R-Car S4 Starter Kit is a low-cost, readily available development board for constructing software employing the Renesas R-Car S4 SoC. The SoC supplies high computing performance and an array of communication features for cloud communication and safe vehicle control. The new starter kit is a less-expensive and readily available option compared to the existing R-Car S4 Reference Board, which delivers a full-scale development environment including an evaluation board and software. Engineers can use the new kit to effortlessly start their initial evaluation of car servers, connected gateways, connectivity modules and more for rapid application development.

"The R-Car S4 SoC has already been well received by our customers as a choice for gateway SoCs that support the evolution of E/E architecture," said Takeshi Fuse, head of Marketing and Business Development, High Performance Computing, Analog and Power Solutions Group at Renesas. "At the same time, our customers requested a development environment that can be used widely across their design teams while keeping the cost down. This low-cost board addresses the need, and we are confident that it will accelerate their vehicle development."

The kit includes essential R-Car S4 interfaces such as Ethernet TSN switch and CAN FD, and memory such as 4GB of LPDDR4, 128GB of UFS, and 64MB of Quad SPI flash memory. Also, users can readily expand peripheral functions by utilising expansion connectors and customise the hardware according to individual needs.

Also, the company supplies the R-Car S4 Whitebox SDK, an open-source automotive development environment for the R-Car S4, which can be combined with the Starter Kit. The SDK consists of FoC software and can be effortlessly used without complicated license agreements. The SDK incorporates sample software, test programs, and resource monitoring tools for OTA, IPS, and IDS for network security, allowing for various prototyping and evaluation. Users can use the sample software as a base to develop their own applications. This kit shortens development time and reduces energy consumption, thus imposing less impact on the environment.