October 31, 2017 – Santa Clara, Calif. (Business Wire) – Renesas Electronics Corporation, a premier supplier of advanced semiconductor solutions, has announced its high-performance R-Car D3 automotive infotainment system system-on-chip (SoC), designed to expand the use of 3D graphics instrument clusters (3D clusters) that support 3D graphics displays in entry-class cars. The R-Car D3 achieves both high-performance graphic capabilities and contributes to significant reduction in overall system development cost.

The new SoC includes a high-performance 3D graphics core that enables a high-quality 3D display and lower system costs equivalent to the bill of materials (BOM) costs of developing with 2D graphics instrument clusters (2D clusters).

By adopting the R-Car D3, system developers can re-use their 3D graphics development assets, including software and graphics designs from high-end vehicles that adopt high-performance R-Car H3 or R-Car M3 SoCs to entry-level cars. This scalability enables development of easy-to-use and high visibility entry cluster 3D graphics at approximately the same level cost as the existing 2D clusters. In addition, Renesas collaborates with industry-leading partners in the instrument cluster field to further reduce development steps and costs.

“Full graphics cluster systems equipped with a large thin filter transistor panel are expected to become mainstream for future vehicles, which will require high-definition 3D graphics displaying at a high speed to accurately convey information to the driver,” said Toshiaki Ishibashi, Managing Officer, Engineering Headquarters, Nippon Seiki Co., Ltd. “We are excited that the R-Car D3 will respond to this need as well as reduce BOM costs.”

"For more than a decade, automotive OEMs and Tier 1s have relied on BlackBerry QNX® to deliver world-class software solutions for infotainment, telematics, and instrument cluster systems," said Grant Tourville, senior director of product management at BlackBerry QNX. "The combination of the new R-Car D3 SoC and BlackBerry’s ISO 26262 ASIL B-certified QNX Platform for Instrument Clusters will enable our customers to confidently deliver state-of-the-art, safety-certified digital clusters rapidly to the market."

The increasing number of connections between the instrument cluster and the various sensors and control devices allows more information about the vehicle and its surroundings to be captured and displayed on the instrument cluster. However, this increases the need for improved visibility from a safety point of view. Renesas developed the R-Car D3 with these functions and performance capabilities in mind, offering developers a reliable, robust 3D clusters solution that is scalable from entry-level to high-end vehicles.