Automotive Industry Moves Closer to 'Plug and Play' Electronics with LIN 2.0
LIN Consortium Demonstrates Global Support for New Version of Communication Standard
BADEN-BADEN, Germany, Sept. 24 -- The steering group of the Local Interconnect Network (LIN) Consortium is releasing version 2.0 of the LIN specification package, with acceptance stretching around the world and extending to the majority of automotive original equipment manufacturers (OEMs).
The LIN Consortium consists of representatives of automotive manufacturers Audi AG, BMW Group, DaimlerChrysler AG, Volvo Car Corporation and Volkswagen AG; communications specialist Volcano Communications Technologies and semiconductor manufacturer Motorola, Inc. forming the Steering Group of the 35 member organization.
"LIN 2.0 is a robust release based on three years of product development and road testing with previous versions of the standard," said Bernd Rucha, chairman of the LIN Consortium and manager of the Computing in the Car Laboratory at Motorola. "It also includes contributions of the SAE J2602 Task Force to the advancement of the LIN specification."
A major milestone for developing time-predictable systems in vehicle networks, LIN 2.0 offers a fully developed systems-engineering approach and high flexibility via a defined reconfiguration mechanism. This capability opens the door for reuse of standardized components from different suppliers across various car platforms without altering hardware or firmware. It also paves the way for use of standard electronic parts inside the vehicle and marks the next step toward the reality of plug and play within the realm of automotive electronics.
Typical applications for the LIN bus are assembly units such as doors, steering wheel, seats, climate regulation, lighting, rain sensors or alternators. In these units, LIN's cost-sensitive nature enables the introduction of mechatronic elements, such as smart sensors, actuators and illumination. Connecting these elements to the car network and making them accessible to all types of diagnostics and services is much easier using LIN. Since fall 2001, various car companies have adopted the LIN platform and put products with LIN on the road, thus gathering experience, leading to the inevitable release of LIN 2.0.
"With the introduction of the A8 at the beginning of 2002, the LIN system was introduced at Audi; it has continued to prove itself worthy ever since," said Walter Streit, head of the networking and diagnostics department at The Audi Group. "With the release of LIN 2.0 and its open interfaces for LIN sub- bus systems, this success will certainly be continued. Electronic systems development at Audi will move to this newest version of the standard with the goal of using the major features -- such as a better system partitioning, reuse of subsystems and the corresponding flexibility."
"With LIN 2.0 Motorola can continue to develop innovative solutions -- from 1.5k to 512k flash and ROM microcontrollers (MCUs). The company's latest product, the QL4 takes the LIN slave to a new performance level with a sophisticated state machine, which implements the LIN 2.0 protocol and helps enable full performance and ease of application development," said Jurgen Weyer, vice president and general manager of the Transportation & Standard Products Group EMEA at Motorola. "These MCUs are fully supported by a range of LIN interface SMOS products -- from the simple LIN Physical Layer device to a more sophisticated System Basis Chip (SBC). Our product portfolio culminates in the LIN System-in-a-Package, providing customers with a full system solution and considerable space and system cost savings."
Evolution of the LIN Standard
LIN 1.0 was released in March 2000 with the objective of defining and implementing an open standard for class-A serial buses in vehicle networks. LIN enables the implementation of a hierarchical vehicle network to gain further quality enhancement and cost reduction of vehicles. LIN's holistic approach and the availability of well-defined tool interfaces allow reduced design time of network systems with robust and fully predictable behavior in the time domain.
Benefits -- beyond the reconfiguration of slave nodes, which enables reuse of the same type of nodes in different systems -- of the new LIN 2.0 standard include an enhanced physical layer description and an enhanced protocol layer for simple and more secure communication without jeopardizing the compatibility to the existing LIN 1.x specifications.
Improvements Over Previous LIN Specifications
LIN 2.0 Features Include:
- Enhanced physical layer description (backward compatible to 1.x)
- Enhanced protocol layer (backward compatible to 1.x)
- In-vehicle configuration capabilities supported by node capability file
and node configuration messages
- Application program interface (API)
- Diagnostic support
About the LIN Consortium
The LIN Consortium was initiated in 1998 as a workgroup of seven companies focused on developing the LIN specification as a low-end multiplex solution to complement the Controller Area Network (CAN) protocol, while reducing the development, production and servicing of automotive electronics. The Consortium has evolved to today's 35 members -- the original seven Steering Group and 28 associated members -- made up of leaders in the automotive, semiconductor and communications sectors. Steering Group members include Audi, BMW, DaimlerChrysler, Motorola, Volvo Car Corporation, Volkswagen and Volcano Communications Technologies (VCT). Since release of the first specification in July 1999, the Consortium has disseminated documentation more than 10,000 times to industrial parties worldwide, with the first LIN-based applications appearing in production vehicles in 2001. Over the next decade, the number of nodes is expected to grow rapidly to an average of 20 per vehicle or a worldwide volume of approximately 1.2 billion LIN nodes per year. For more information about the LIN Consortium, visit http://www.lin-subbus.org/ .
About The Audi Group
The Audi Group (AUDI AG & Lamborghini) develops and builds high-quality cars on a worldwide scale. The main markets besides Germany are the United States and United Kingdom. The company has production sites in Germany, Hungary, Brazil, China and South Africa. In 2002, Audi manufactured around 736,000 vehicles and over 1.2 million engines. Sales revenue was more than EUR 22.6 billion. The Audi Group has around 51,000 employees in total.
About BMW Group
The BMW Group -- a global company -- is a leading manufacturer of premium automobiles and motorbikes, it offers a broad product range of attractive and authentic brands such as BMW, MINI, and Rolls-Royce Motor Cars. 2002, 1.2 million vehicles were manufactured in the Group's international production network. The automobiles are sold throughout more than 130 countries, with the United States, Germany and the United Kingdom being the biggest markets. Revenues of BMW Group in 2002 were 42.3 billion Euros.
About DaimlerChrysler
DaimlerChrysler is one of the world's leading providers of automotive, transportation products and services. It has a global workforce and an international shareholder platform. The Group represents products which are known throughout the world: Its passenger car brands include Mercedes-Benz, Maybach, smart, Chrysler, Plymouth, Jeep and Dodge; commercial vehicles are produced under the brand names Mercedes-Benz, Freightliner, Sterling, Western Star and Setra. DaimlerChrysler Services (debis) offers financial and other services and is one of the world's largest independent providers of financial services.
About Motorola, Inc.
Motorola is a global leader in wireless, automotive and broadband communications. Sales in 2002 were $27.3 billion. Motorola is a global corporate citizen dedicated to ethical business practices and pioneering important innovations that make things smarter and life better, honored traditions that began when the company was founded 75 years ago this year. For more information, please visit www.motorola.com .
About Volcano Communications Technologies
VCT is a privately owned Swedish limited company established 1998 by founders with significant experience from automotive architectures and networking, with headquarters located in Gothenburg, Sweden. It has attracted a substantial investment funding from Volvo Technology Transfer and the 6th Fund Board of the National Insurance Fund of Sweden. The mission of VCT is to bring a combination of the best academic research and solid industrial experience in real-time communications solutions for embedded systems to the commercial marketplace.
About The Volkswagen Group
The Volkswagen Group with its headquarters in Wolfsburg is one of the world's leading automobile manufacturers and the largest car producer in Europe. In 2002, the Volkswagen Group achieved its second-highest profit before tax in the company's history at 4.0 billion euros. Last year the Group's sales totaled 86.9 billion euros (2001: 88.5 billion euros). With 4.984 million (2001: 5.080 million) vehicles delivered to customers in 2002, the company attained a global market share of 12.1 percent. In Western Europe, the largest car market in the world, nearly every fifth new car came from the Volkswagen Group. The Group operates 44 production plants in 11 European countries and seven countries in the Americas, Asia and Africa. Around the world more than 320,000 employees produce over 21,500 vehicles or are involved in vehicle-related services every working day. The Volkswagen Group sells its vehicles in more than 150 countries. Volkswagen's cars, the Lupo, Polo, Golf, Touran, Bora, New Beetle, Passat, Sharan, Touareg, Phaeton and their respective variants represent a range of products from the small car to the MPV and to high luxury class car. Volkswagen introduced the LIN bus into its vehicle network system last year with the Touran. The new Golf will follow this year. With LIN 2.0, Volkswagen will launch the LIN bus into high volume cars and the LIN Bus takes its own place in the network concepts of Volkswagen Group in the field of local sub-bus systems.
About Volvo Car Corporation
Volvo Car Corporation has 27,000 employees, of whom 19,000 are in Sweden. Sales in 2002 reached approximately 408,000 cars, with a turnover of 120 billion SEK. The largest markets are USA, Sweden, Germany, UK and Japan. Volvo Car Corporation is a wholly owned subsidiary of Ford Motor Company. FMC is based in Dearborn outside Detroit in the USA.
MOTOROLA and the Stylized M Logo are registered in the US Patent & Trademark Office. All other product or service names are the property of their respective owners.