As state, nowadays cars are becoming more and more moving computing platforms.While around ten years ago the electronic content was limited by turning on the lights and engine, nowadays our full perceived comfort,safety and quality of the vehicle is heavily determines by the electronic content, which created the custmer valued and perceived main distinguishing added value for future vehicle products.

A typical modern luxury class automobile has for example:

1. 11,136 electrical and electronic parts
2. a vehicle electrical system with a maximum of 2119 individual lines totalling 3860 m
3. a total of 61 networked control units
4. 31 control units with diagnostics using the K-line
5. an optical bus for powerful data flow for Information and Entertainment (Infotainment)
6. 35 control units on CAN bus systems with a data exchange of approx. 2500 signals in 250 CAN messages.
7. more than 5 000 000 + lines of estimated source code

More extreme examples which reach the limit of involved Electronic Control Units (ECUs)components inside one single vehicle is the Toyota LEXUS LS460 luxury model(see picture).

It was released in September 2006 and was the most expensive car made by Japanese carmakers until this time. Inside the vehicle around estimated 7 000 000 lines of software were in charge of the functionality running on more than 100 Electronic Control Units with all optional equipment attached on.

Lexus LS460 Source: www.lexus.jp

The resent model involved more than 100 ECUs which can be barely handled in complexity,component space inside the vehicle chassis and cost.

Therefore new approaches and enabling technologies are looked for how to reduce the ECU amounth and the involved electroncis and its connectors, which starts to play a significant part of the competitive pricing model of a vehicle. Future vehicles will target therefore Multiprocessor Cores with partitioned functionality inside the vehicle and special software platforms which will allow a 1:n functional mapping of functionality to one ECU, opposed to the current approach where one major functionality,like for example the lifting of the door windows, is currently mapped to the responsibility of at least one dedicated Electronic Control Unit component.