NXP announces the new S32K5 microcontroller family

     NXP Semiconductors announces the new S32K5 family of automotive microcontrollers (MCUS), the automotive industry's first 16nm FinFET MCU with embedded MRAM. The S32K5 MCU family will extend NXP's CoreRide platform to provide pre-integrated area control and electrification system solutions for scalable software-defined vehicle (SDV) architectures.

     Automotive manufacturers are gradually adopting regional control architectures to distribute and integrate electronic control unit (ECU) functions in a variety of ways. These area control solutions are based on a next-generation MCU architecture that combines real-time performance, low-latency deterministic communication, and innovative isolation.

     Manuel Alves, senior vice president and general manager of Automotive microcontrollers at NXP Semiconductors, said: "The new S32K5 family pushes the boundaries of MCU performance while providing the safety, efficiency and isolation necessary for area control solutions. The NXP CoreRide platform with the S32K5 will help automakers and Tier 1 suppliers accelerate the development of regional control architectures to provide a scalable foundation for software-driven innovation."

     NXP's new S32K5 series features an Arm Cortex CPU core that runs at speeds up to 800 MHz and delivers energy-efficient application performance through the 16nm FinFET process. Optimized accelerators can be used to mitigate critical workloads, including network communication conversion, information security and digital signal processing. The S32K5 integrates the Ethernet switch core shared with the NXP S32N automotive processor, providing a proven networking solution that simplifies network design and enables software reuse.

     The S32K5 integrates a software-defined, hardware-enhanced isolation architecture that enables vehicle manufacturers to achieve functional safety and information security partitioning, ensuring that security applications up to ASIL-D can be integrated without compromising overall system functional safety or performance.

     In addition, the on-chip high-performance MRAM reduces in-plant ECU program burn time and remote OTA program update time, and writes more than 15 times faster than embedded Flash. Combined with NXP's new security accelerators, including post-quantum encryption (PQC) capabilities, the S32K5 enables automakers to safely and reliably deploy new capabilities throughout the vehicle's life cycle, benefiting both automakers and users.