System Performance Optimization Methodology for Infineon´s 32-Bit Automotive Microcontroller Architecture

Microcontrollers are the core part of automotive Electronic Control Units (ECUs). A significant investment of the ECU manufacturers and even their customers is linked to the specified microcontroller family. To preserve this investment it is required to continuously design new generations of the microcontroller with hardware and software compatibility but higher system performance and/or lower cost. The challenge for the microcontroller manufacturer is to get the relevant inputs for improving the system performance, since a microcontroller is used by many customers in many different applications. For Infmeon´s latest TriCorereg based 32-bit microcontroller product line, the required statistical data is gathered by using the trace features of the Emulation Device (ED). Infineon´s customers use EDs in their unchanged target system and application environment. With an analytical methodology and based on this statistical data, the performance improvements of different SoC architecture and implementation options can be quantified. This allows an objective assessment of improvement options by comparing their performance cost ratios.