1 Introduction

A digital cluster is a digital instrumentation panel that displays important vehicle information like speed, engine RPM, and fuel gauge status and other vehicle diagnostics through a conventional set of dials and warning lights. Cluster technology evolution, from analog meters and gauges to all digital, has been accelerated by the need in the automotive industry for displaying increased features with improved graphics, while simultaneously meeting critical safety requirements. The AM62x processor family has been architected with entry-level digital cluster requirements in consideration.

The AM62x processor is a heterogeneous processor architecture which consists of different compute cores for different tasks, thus enabling efficient low-power computation. The main application processor consists of up to Quad A-53 ARM® processors alongside a powerful 3D graphics engine. There is an integrated safety island with an M4F MCU channel that can operate independently from the main processing cores and is designed to meet ASIL-B automotive functional safety requirements. AM62x also meets both SHE 1.1 and EVITA compliance. Automotive grade security is enabled with the presence of a hardware security manager (HSM) module, which consists of dual M4F cores.

This application note takes a system-level overview of how an entry-level cluster design can be implemented on AM62x. With advancing embedded technologies, car manufacturers are able to take advantage of new hardware as well as software features, to provide an enhanced and safe driving experience to the consumer. As automotive safety standards and regulations gain prominence, providing safety designs for any automotive application becomes imperative. These safety design can include the use of tell-tales, which are warning lights or indicators on the digital cluster that are crucial for the safety of the vehicle. The accuracy and timeliness of a tell-tale display on the instrument cluster is safety critical.

As a cluster design involves displaying a digital display, this application note begins by first going through the display pipeline, consisting of the GPU and Display Subsystem. After the display pipeline is introduced, how the AM62x provides all the necessary safety features to meet ASIL-B as per the ISO 26262 standard is discussed, using an example software cluster tell-tale application.

Figure 1-1 shows a high-level system block diagram for a digital cluster design based on the TI AM62x processor. In a typical application, the processor runs a high-level operation system such as Linux®, QNX®, or INTEGRITY® and manages all system components.

In addition to the application processor, the block diagram includes many other system components, such as:

• Display Subsystem paired with 2 × OLDI (4 Lanes) for driving LCD panels.
• Flash to store boot images and the files system.
• MCU to manage input and output, full system wake-up and potentially the controller area network (CAN) stack.
• Camera input to feed input from driver-monitoring cameras. This input can be useful in instances where a system design needs to support an entry-level driver monitoring and cluster application.
• Graphical processing unit (GPU) for 3D rendering.