Date: 28/08/2009

FlexRay is gaining ground as an accepted automotive bus interface

One of the founding members of FlexRay, NXP Semiconductor has shipped one million FlexRay transceivers. Being the first company to release FlexRay transceivers, NXP lead in the market. The other emerging player in this market is Austria Micro Systems (AMS).
Also there is Freescale Semiconductor providing FlexRay supported chips for automotives.

The popular CAN (Controller Area Network) is loosing steam due to its inability to support the modern day content (high bandwidth audio video along with growing number of control signals).

The FlexRay transceiver products from NXP are, TJA1080 and recently added TJA1081 and TJA1082. The FlexRay transceivers from AMS are, AS8220 and AS8221.

Fault-tolerant and high-speed FlexRay supports drive by wire features such as brake-by-wire and steer-by-wire. BMW X5 is the first tested car fitted with NXP and Freescale's FlexRay chips. BMW has started adopting FlexRay in other models also.

Kai Barbehön, BMW Department Manager Platform-Technologies and FlexRay Consortium Executive Board Member says, "In order to implement new features such as the BMW Dynamic Driver Control which offers our customers exceptional ride control, BMW has used NXP FlexRay technology. BMW is committed to further develop the FlexRay bus system that provides the safety, speed and robust quality demanded in automotive applications and counts therefore on the strong partnership within the semiconductor industry in the future, too."

Market analyst Strategy Analytics predicts, by year 2015 FlexRay to account for around eight percent of global bus transceiver revenues, from less than one percent in 2009.

The only threat to FlexRay, is shaping up in the form of Ethernet. A group called AVnu alliance, founded by companies such as Broadcom, Intel, Xilinx, Cisco, Harman International, and Samsung, is offering Ethernet based bus standard for automotives. This group attempting to provide nearly similar bus standard for both automotive and consumer electronics.

URLs of companies
NXP: www.nxp.com
AMS: www.austriamicrosystems.com
FlexRay Consortium: www.FlexRay.com