The Dawn of a New Paradigm: A Massive Shift in the Automotive Industry
The automotive industry stands at a historic turning point. With the rapid evolution of Software-Defined Vehicles (SDVs), the complexity of Electronic/Electrical (E/E) systems has reached unprecedented levels. We’ve entered an era where millions of lines of code interact across numerous Electronic Control Units (ECUs). To effectively manage this complexity, automotive development is undergoing a profound transformation—shifting away from traditional ‘function-centric’ models toward ‘architecture-centric’ thinking.
This new paradigm is fundamentally reshaping how Tier-1 suppliers and OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers) approach E/E system development, driving efficiency, flexibility, and future competitiveness.
Five Key Insights on How Architecture-Centric Development is Transforming Automotive E/E Systems
1. Revolutionary Enhancement of Change Management and Flexibility
Past: In traditional function-centric development, even minor requirement changes led to widespread modifications across various ECUs, resulting in increased development time, higher costs, and system instability.
Present: Architecture-centric development dramatically reduces these challenges through modularity and standardized interfaces.
✓ The power of modular design: Developers can make changes within specific modules without disrupting the entire system. ✓ Clear component boundaries simplify change management as only affected interfaces need adjustment.
Real-world example: Over-the-Air (OTA) updates exemplify this flexibility. Centralized architectures support wireless updates, reducing the need for service visits and enabling rapid responses to post-release issues or evolving customer demands. Hyundai aims to standardize OTA updates across all models by 2025, potentially saving up to $35 billion annually in recall-related costs.
Challenge: To fully leverage architectural flexibility, Tier-1 suppliers must adopt agile development practices. Agile methodologies, CI/CD pipelines, and automated testing (unit, integration, regression) are essential to prevent architecture from becoming a bottleneck.
2. Accelerating Development through Reuse and Iteration
As modern E/E systems grow increasingly complex, building from scratch for each project becomes progressively inefficient. Architecture-centric development encourages software asset reuse, enabling faster and more efficient development cycles.
Key enablers:
- Modularity
- Platform strategies
- Hardware abstraction
Practical application: Product Line Engineering (PLE) allows OEMs to reuse software across different models, dramatically accelerating the development process. AUTOSAR (Automotive Open System Architecture) represents a widely adopted architecture-based reuse strategy that standardizes components and interfaces, ensuring interoperability and maximized reuse across various platforms.
While adopting AUTOSAR presents challenges such as initial complexity and integration issues with legacy systems, the benefits of standardization, reuse, and improved collaboration are undeniable. To achieve high reuse rates, OEMs and Tier-1 suppliers must focus on clear interface definitions, effective repository management, and consistent standard compliance.
3. Streamlining Functional Safety (ISO 26262) Compliance
As E/E systems become more complex, managing functional safety requirements grows increasingly difficult. Architecture-centric development enables efficient management of ISO 26262 requirements through structured safety goal assignments and systematic ASIL (Automotive Safety Integrity Level) decomposition.
Innovative approach:
- By decomposing safety requirements early in the design process, teams can optimize safety allocations, prevent unnecessary high-level safety requirements, and improve verification efficiency.
- Integration of safety mechanisms like memory partitioning and error detection into the design becomes easier.
Success story: Texas Instruments reported a 40% reduction in development costs for an electric vehicle inverter control system through effective ASIL decomposition.
Future challenge: New cybersecurity issues arising from increased connectivity and OTA updates must be addressed by integrating functional safety and cybersecurity frameworks such as ISO/SAE 21434.
4. Structuring Team Collaboration and Parallel Development
Modern E/E system development requires coordination among large, multi-disciplinary teams from various domains (ADAS, infotainment, etc.) and areas of expertise (hardware, software, system engineering, safety, security). Traditional siloed development proves inefficient in this complex environment, leading to integration issues and delays.
Strengths of architecture-centric development:
- Enables more effective team collaboration by defining clear interfaces between components early in the process.
- Teams can work in parallel, focusing on individual modules while adhering to agreed specifications.
Key tools: AUTOSAR’s Virtual Function Bus (VFB) and Runtime Environment (RTE) help decouple application components from communication mechanisms, facilitating parallel development without compromising integration.
Success factors: Effective interface management is crucial. Standardizing interfaces, centralizing management, and adopting automated interface testing practices are essential for ensuring successful parallel development. This approach, combined with simulation environments like SIL (Software-in-the-Loop), accelerates the integration process, enabling teams to test software components even before hardware is available.
5. Building Knowledge Assets and Strengthening Organizational Capability
Shifting to architecture-centric development not only improves the technical aspects of automotive system design but also strengthens organizational capability. Architectural artifacts such as models, component specifications, and interface definitions capture the knowledge embedded in the system’s design.
Knowledge management innovation:
- Documenting the rationale behind design choices is essential for maintaining consistency and supporting future modifications.
- This structured knowledge system improves onboarding for new team members, enabling them to quickly understand the system’s architecture and component roles.
- By documenting and systematizing expert knowledge, tacit knowledge is transformed into explicit knowledge that is accessible and shareable.
Success example: Toyota’s knowledge network, which disseminates manufacturing knowledge across its plants, exemplifies how organizations can leverage knowledge management systems to retain and share valuable insights.
Conclusion: Preparing for the Future
The shift from function-centric to architecture-centric development in automotive E/E systems represents a transformative change driven by the rise of SDVs and increasing E/E system complexity. The benefits of this transition are clear:
✓ Enhanced flexibility and change management ✓ Accelerated development through reuse ✓ Streamlined functional safety compliance ✓ More efficient team collaboration ✓ Enhanced organizational knowledge management
However, the transition also presents significant challenges, including the complexity and cost of new architectures, the need for skill development, and overcoming organizational inertia. To succeed, OEMs and Tier-1 suppliers must adopt a holistic approach that integrates technology, processes, and culture.
By focusing on modularity, interfaces, abstraction, agile methodologies, standardization, safety, collaboration, and knowledge management, the automotive industry can unlock the full potential of architecture-centric development, positioning itself for success in the rapidly evolving automotive landscape.
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If you are interested in other articles about the MBSE Methods, please refer to the links below!
[MBSE-Method] #1. OOSEM (Object-Oriented Systems Engineering Methodology)