NXP Launches S32K5 MCU Series for SDV Control

NXP Semiconductors has announced the launch of its groundbreaking S32K5 series of automotive microcontrollers (MCUs), marking the first-ever 16nm FinFET MCU with embedded MRAM in the automotive industry. The S32K5 MCU series is designed to enhance NXP's CoreRide platform, offering pre-integrated regional control and electrification system solutions for scalable, software-defined vehicle (SDV) architectures.

Automotive manufacturers are increasingly adopting regional control architectures to distribute and integrate electronic control unit (ECU) functions in multiple ways. At the heart of these regional control solutions is the next-generation MCU architecture, which combines real-time performance, low-latency deterministic communication, and innovative isolation features.

Manuel Alves, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Automotive Microcontrollers at NXP Semiconductors, commented, “The new S32K5 series pushes the boundaries of MCU performance while meeting the safety, efficiency, and isolation requirements critical for regional control solutions. With the S32K5 integrated into NXP's CoreRide platform, automotive manufacturers and Tier 1 suppliers can accelerate the development of regional control architectures, providing a scalable foundation for software-driven innovations.”

The S32K5 series features Arm® Cortex® CPU cores, clocked at up to 800 MHz, and leverages 16nm FinFET technology to deliver high-efficiency application performance. Optimized accelerators are designed to offload key workloads, including network communication conversion, information security, and digital signal processing. The S32K5 also integrates an Ethernet switch core shared with NXP's S32N automotive processor, offering a robust networking solution that simplifies network design and supports software reuse.

Equipped with a software-defined, hardware-augmented isolation architecture, the S32K5 helps automotive manufacturers implement functional and information security partitioning. This ensures the integration of safety applications up to the ASIL-D level, without compromising overall system functionality or performance.

The S32K5 also includes a dedicated eIQ® Neutron Neural Processing Unit (NPU), NXP's scalable machine learning accelerator, enabling efficient real-time processing of vehicle edge sensor data. Additionally, the on-chip high-performance MRAM reduces ECU programming time during manufacturing and OTA software update times, achieving write speeds more than 15 times faster than embedded Flash.

Coupled with NXP's new security accelerators, including post-quantum cryptography (PQC) capabilities, the S32K5 enables automotive manufacturers to securely and reliably deploy new functions throughout a vehicle's lifecycle, benefiting both automakers and end-users.