Dual-TDA4x based system can enable system cost savings by taking advantage of TDA4x SoC features. TDA4X SoC integrates many critical processors and IPs required for an ADAS system including image signal processing (ISP), MCU/safety island for ASIL-D safety support, Ethernet switch and so on. Such integration minimizes required external components. For TDA4, PMIC, DDR, flash memory for boot and storage are the main required external peripheral devices. In addition, there can be further cost savings for dual-SoC solution including:

The external storage and flash memory including DDR, EMMC and flash.

• The external DDR memory is needed for each TDA4.
• MMC is usually used to store high level OS system image and filesystem. If there is no strict restriction on the boot time of high-level operating system (HLOS) on secondary TDA4x, then these boot images can be transferred via PCIe or Ethernet from primary TDA4x SoC. As a result, the secondary eMMC can be optimized in this case.
• In order to achieve faster startup time, the boot image usually saved in NOR Flash (OSPI/QSPI), however the OSPI is faster and more expensive than QSPI.
  • If secondary TDA4x SoC is required to start at the same time as the primary TDA4, then both boot flashes are needed, therefore the OSPI for primary TDA4x SoC and QSPI for secondary TDA4x SoC can be used to provide a cost-effective solution.
  • If secondary TDA4x SoC can boot after primary TDA4x SoC starts up, the secondary boot flash can be optimized because secondary TDA4x boot image can be transferred via PCIe or Ethernet from primary TDA4x SoC.

However, the final decision on system BOM is based on system requirements to optimize the best performance and the system cost.