Infineon Redefines Real-Time Compute and Control for Software-Defined Vehicles and Physical AI with new AURIX RC1

­Infineon Technologies AG is taking a strategic step forward to expand its portfolio for software-defined vehicles (SDV) as well as other software-defined (SDX) and Physical AI applications, reinforcing its position as global market leader in microcontrollers (MCU). The company is introducing a fundamentally new MCU platform within its industry-leading AURIX™ series for real-time control in automotive and beyond. AURIX RC1 is Infineon’s first MCU platform that leverages the benefits of RISC-V. Scaling from traditional microcontrollers to hybrid microcontroller/microprocessor devices, it provides a new level of power-efficient real-time intelligence to enable safe and secured future SDV, SDX and Physical AI. 

“Delivering vehicles and other physical systems that become smarter, safer and more efficient over time through new software fundamentally changes the requirements for the computing hardware,” said Peter Schiefer, President of the Automotive Division at Infineon. “Microcontrollers need to become more configurable, scalable, and adaptable while maintaining highest safety and security levels as applications evolve. AURIX RC1 combines the flexibility of the open standard RISC-V with decades of Infineon expertise in providing dependable execution of safety-critical tasks in real-time. Our ambition is to redefine real-time compute and control for software-defined vehicles and extend this to Physical AI.”

Accelerating SDV development with a common RISC-V foundation
In SDV, functions and software that used to be distributed in many control units around the car are increasingly integrated into central car computers and zone controllers. AURIX RC1 simplifies the development of such architectures by providing engineering teams with one common MCU basis rather than a point solution for every domain. Complementing Infineon’s existing MCU portfolio, it integrates the strengths of AURIX as well as Infineon’s TRAVEO™ T2G family for body, connectivity and display applications into one joint next MCU generation. As a result, AURIX RC1 spans applications from zone, body, and chassis control, battery management systems, powertrains, and safety management for driver assistance to cockpit applications, providing further scalability towards cross-domain computing. 

The modular nature of RISC-V allows Infineon to optimize individual lineups of the AURIX RC1 family for specific applications while simultaneously leveraging the advantages of a common foundation across the entire family. Processing resources can be tailored to the specific needs of each application. Combined with application-specific power management capabilities, this helps to balance performance requirements and energy consumption. At the same time, software, tools, and expertise developed for one domain can be reused and scaled across others, helping shorten development cycles and accelerate innovation.  

Extending MCUs to hybrid MCU/MPU architectures
Depending on the application, AURIX RC1 will integrate up to 12 32-bit processing cores, an advanced parallel processing unit for edge AI and up to 40 megabytes of embedded memory. Furthermore, Infineon is planning to introduce a product lineup within the AURIX RC1 family that extends the traditional microcontroller domain with additional 64-bit microprocessor capabilities. This will allow Infineon to further scale computing performance as the trend to consolidate more functions in central computers continues.

In addition to higher computing performance, functional safety, future-proof cybersecurity and high-speed in-vehicle networking are foundational requirements in software-defined vehicles. AURIX RC1 is designed to support applications up to the highest automotive safety level (ASIL D) and features cybersecurity mechanisms that meet global standards and regulations such as ISO/SAE 21434 and the Cyber Resilience Act. The microcontroller platform provides hardware mechanisms for a high level of physical protection and crypto-agility and is ready to support also evolving security requirements of the future such as post-quantum cryptography.  

To efficiently move data across the vehicle, the product family supports state-of-the-art communication standards such as CAN-XL, 10BASE-T1S and multi-Gigabit Ethernet. On selected devices, this includes integrated BRIGHTLANE™ Ethernet switching technology and hardware-accelerated data routing. Bringing together control and communication, this helps to reduce the number of necessary external components as well as workload on application processors.

Infineon supports AURIX RC1 with a complementary scalable portfolio of matching OPTIREG™ power supply solutions, providing a seamless and optimized power management offering across the platform.      

Software ecosystem helps accelerate adoption and simplify migration
AURIX RC1 is supported by the most comprehensive software ecosystem in AURIX history, the DRIVECORE ecosystem. Combining software from Infineon and from ecosystem partners into pre-integrated software bundles, DRIVECORE helps customers accelerate software development and reduce migration effort when transitioning from existing AURIX and TRAVEO T2G platforms to AURIX RC1.

DRIVECORE provides support for AUTOSAR, open-source software, functional safety and cybersecurity. Virtual prototyping allows teams to begin software development and validation before hardware availability, while AI-assisted migration tools simplify software porting and help preserve existing software investments. 

Over the past years, Infineon has established a leading position in advancing automotive RISC-V. The company fosters industry collaboration to accelerate ecosystem readiness and adoption of open standards for automotive real-time compute. As a premium member of the RISC-V International association and a founding member of the joint venture Quintauris, Infineon is working closely with industry leaders across software, tooling, middleware, virtualization, and system development to help establish common industry foundations, improve interoperability, and accelerate the availability of production-ready automotive RISC-V solutions. This provides customers with greater software portability, ecosystem choice, and long-term scalability.

Further information about AURIX RC1 is available here.