Wind River announced a new version of Wind River Platform for Infotainment, its Genivi-compliant automotive stack designed for building Linux-based in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) systems. The new version adds support for ARM processors, as well as Apple iPhone and iPod integration, Wind River Hypervisor support for multi-OS virtualization, and a new application and GUI framework, says the company.

The major update in Wind River Platform for Infotainment is the new support for ARM processors, in addition to its earlier Intel Atom support. This mirrors the Genivi Alliance's emerging ARM Cortex reference platform, which has been under development since last year, but has yet to be formally announced.

All told, the updated Wind River Platform for Infotainment is said to include:

• support for multiple hardware architectures, including ARM and Atom-based architectures
• ready-to-go iPhone and iPod support that allows suppliers to integrate related solutions and reduce bill of material costs
• simulation of the iPod interface on the IVI head unit, or "iPod Out" feature
• application framework designed for easy development of applications and graphical user interface (GUI) creation
• Wind River Hypervisor support, enabling embedded virtualization for multi-OS capabilities within the control module or head unit of the IVI device

In addition to ARM support, the other interesting update here is the iOS integration. One would think that Android might have been be first to be integrated, considering the Linux underpinnings of Genivi,  but perhaps these updates were were in the pipeline long before Android phones rose to prominence.

Platform for Infotainment background

Wind River Platform for Infotainment was announced back in May 2008 as a Moblin Linux-based automotive collaboration between Wind River and Intel. This was before Wind River became a subsidiary of Intel, before Moblin morphed into MeeGo, and before the Genivi Alliance formed in March 2009 with the goal of developing an open source Linux-based IVI reference design and middleware.

The first announced Genivi platform was based on Wind River Platform for Infotainment running on an Intel Atom. In January of this year, Wind River and automotive component manufacturer Magneti Marelli announced a collaboration on the first Genivi-compliant IVI system modeled on the Atom-based platform, due for an appearance in a BMW automobile.

As with the Magneti Marilli announcement, Wind River makes no mention here of MeeGo's role in the platform, although it would seem likely it has employed the operating system. Last July, the Genivi Alliance announced that the Intel Atom version of the Genivi IVI platform, at least, will be based on MeeGo. In May, the MeeGo project released MeeGo 1.2, which included an updated IVI "User Experience (UX)" that adds speech recognition capabilities.

In June, two Genivi-compliant IVI reference platforms were announced in prototype stage. The first, from Renesas Electronics, is based on its ARM-Cortex "R-Car" platform and incorporates CSR's SiRFstarIV-based GPS technology. The second is a collaboration between Rightware Oy and Genivi member MontaVista Software. The IVI solution is said to be based on MontaVista Linux and integrate Rightware's Kanzi UI Solution.

Wind River claims leading software role in Genivi

Wind River claims to serve more than two-thirds of the Genivi Alliance's OEM and Tier 1 members. In addition, more than 30 third-party independent software vendors (ISVs) contribute to the Wind River automotive ecosystem, says the company.

Wind River integrates, tests, and validates the ISVs' software components, which include GPS/navigation, speech recognition, and in the case of one Cybercom product, Bluetooth components.

Stated Kristian Palm, Bluetooth Solutions Business Manager at Cybercom Group, "Through our work with Wind River, Cybercom is able to offer customers Bluetooth solutions that can be quickly and efficiently rolled into their IVI devices. By using a prevalidated solution, equipment manufacturers can spend less time on integration and complete their products faster and at lower cost."

Availability

The updated version of Wind River Platform for Infotainment appears to be available now. More information may be found at the Wind River Platform for Infotainment web-page.

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