For many years, carmakers have developed unique system designs
to gain a competitive advantage using some unique technology or an
optimization of a design to cut costs or improve quality. This
leads to continual increase in complexity, long development times
and high development costs.
A common platform, based on an "open
architecture,'' provides a solution for many of the
problems associated with the conventional automotive approach to
electrical/electronic system designs. The PC industry is a prime
example of how an open architecture can provide benefits to the
consumer, manufacturers of software and hardware components, as
well as complete system integrators.
The PC, based on the initial IBM computer developed in the early
eighties, has become a de facto standard that has survived 20 years
of fast and dramatic changes in the fundamental technologies used
within the platform.
The carmakers have come together to develop an "open
architecture'' for the new rapidly growing multimedia,
telematics and communication systems for in-car use. The
development of this new architecture is intended to meet the ever
changing customer demands by shortening time-to-market of new
components, broadening available feature choices and providing a
method to easily upgrade older vehicles which have obsolete
technologies.
The Automotive Multimedia Interface Collaboration (AMI-C),
comprised of 12 car manufacturers, is working to develop an open
architecture using interface standards and specifications for
multimedia, telematics and navigation systems.
The resulting AMI-C architecture will include requirements and
specifications for software interfaces, networking protocols,
network gateways, APIs, physical connectors, packaging, and
environmental specifications.