Inventec and Renesas Electronics Corporation announced that they have agreed to jointly design automotive-grade gateway solutions for the rapidly growing electric vehicle (EV) market. Targeting Tier-1 automotive suppliers and OEMs, the companies will develop a Proof of Concept (PoC) for connected gateways based on the R-Car system-on-chip (SoC) from Renesas. Under the terms of the agreement, Renesas will provide Inventec its latest offering of R-Car SoCs, analog, and power products, along with engineering support to assist Inventec in developing a PoC for next-generation in-vehicle connected gateway systems. The two companies will regularly share product development roadmaps, market insights and specifications.

The first PoC will integrate cybersecurity and over-the-air (OTA) features for connected gateway applications and is expected to be available by Inventec in second quarter of 2024. The development of the PoC for automotive gateways reflects a transformational shift toward new E/E (electrical and electronics) architectures in the automotive industry. Automotive system developers need to integrate complex networks of electronic control units (ECUs) into their vehicles and enable software to receive OTA updates securely.

The new PoC will not only drive innovation in vehicle development, but also create new possibilities for emerging vehicle manufacturers worldwide to take part in the rapidly expanding EV market. The Renesas R-Car is a high-performance, scalable compute platform that addresses a wide range of automotive applications, such as Automated Driving (AD), ADAS, connected gateways, in-vehicle infotainment systems, cockpit, and dashboards. In the future, the two companies plan to collaborate not only in connected gateways, but also in a wide range of in-vehicle applications such as vehicle computers, and battery management systems.