On March 12, the 5th Software Defined Vehicles Forum and AUTOSAR China Day was held in Shanghai. Co-hosted by AUTOSAR Organization and Gasgoo, the event focused on Software Defined Vehicles (SDV) and discussed the future trends of automotive software technologies. As a leading enterprise in mmWave radar chips, Calterah's automotive SoC products and solutions cover various auto radar applications, including 4D imaging radar, front radar, corner radar, door radar, in-cabin radar, etc. Invited to AUTOSAR China Day, Calterah elaborated on its development model of chip basic software based on AUTOSAR, gaining wide attention from the industry.

AUTOSAR (AUTomotive Open System Architecture) is a global partnership of leading companies in the automotive and software industries to develop and establish the standardized software framework and open E/E system architecture for intelligent mobility. The use of AUTOSAR software architecture makes automotive software more scalable and portable, greatly improves code reusability, reduces repetitive work, and shortens development cycles.

Zhanfang Zhang, a Calterah Firmware Manager introduced, "Calterah's chip basic software can be classified into traditional SDK and AUTOSAR SDK (also known as MCAL SDK), and all of our SoC products support AUTOSAR MCAL." Calterah MCAL (Microcontroller Abstraction Layer) SDK is developed using the AUTOSAR 4.4.0 architecture, a model that meets the requirements of the automotive software standards ASPICE of CL2 level and the functional safety standard ISO 26262. Zhang pointed out that the basic software of automotive chip not only needs to meet the requirements of function realization and chip verification, but also needs to comply with the strict automotive industry standards, so how to achieve both high quality and high efficiency in the development of chip software is also a challenge facing many chip software developers.

Addressing the challenge of achieving both high quality and high efficiency, Zhang shared Calterah's practical experience at the conference. A software development process following the V-model can lead to slow response to requirement changes, high execution costs, and low efficiency. Chip software development is featured by high certainty of software requirements, relatively longer product iteration cycles, controllable generational differences, long lifecycle and high value of platformization. These factors are the reason why Calterah follows the subsequent approaches in its chip software development model:

• Modularization: Compartmentalize the V model into small components so as to greatly improve the response speed
• Platformization: Integrate small modules in the V model so as to reduce repetitive work across different projects
• Automation: Continuously improve test automation rates through automated testing and continuous integration platforms to increase efficiency

Calterah's chip basic software development model also implements CI/CD (continuous integration and continuous delivery/deployment) to achieve continuous iteration of software in the whole lifecycle, achieving high quality in software delivery.

Calterah’s AUTOSAR-based basic chip software development model has been exemplified by the MCAL SDK of mmWave radar SoC Alps-Pro. Based on the AUTOSAR 4.4.0 architecture, Alps-Pro radar MCAL SDK has achieved ASPICE CL2 and ISO 26262 ASIL-B. It covers MCAL, sample project and code, radar program, user documentation, etc., providing customers with complete and comprehensive software support.

With modularization, platformization, and automation as the basic requirements, Calterah will continue to improve its chip-based software development model to deliver software products with higher quality, more user-friendly interfaces, and support for easier iteration and differentiated development, contributing to innovation in software defined vehicles.