Renesas Electronics announced the "R-Car virtualization support package" that enables easier development of hypervisors for the R-Car automotive SoC. The R-Car virtualization support package includes, at no charge, both the R-Car hypervisor development guide document and sample software for use as reference in such development for software vendors who develop the embedded hypervisors that are required for integrated cockpits and connected car applications. A hypervisor is a virtualization operating system that allows multiple guest OSs, such as Linux, Android, and various real-time OSs, to run completely independently on a single chip. Renesas announced the R-Car hypervisor in April of 2017 and the new R-Car virtualization Support Package was developed to help software vendors accelerate their development of R-Car hypervisors.
As more and more R-Car hypervisors become available from software vendors, OEM and Tier 1 companies will have a wider choice of hypervisor options and will be able to select an optimal hypervisor for the combination of the guest OS to be run, and for the system of meter cluster and cloud services used. This will increase the flexibility of integrated cockpit system and connected car development and make development faster.
By growing its ecosystem with partner companies, including hypervisor vendors, Renesas plans to further expand its lineup of the virtualization package, a combination of a hypervisor and guest OS, and aims to lead the deployment of virtualization into vehicles to contribute to the realization of a safe and secure automotive society.