From driver information systems to body control ECUs: Breaking the cost & complexity barrier in automotive software

A few weeks ago, at a partner event, I had a conversation with a senior embedded software architect from a major automotive supplier. He described how his team had spent months getting their driver information software to build and run reliably across development teams. Every new developer needs days to onboard. All of this was happening while management demanded faster release cycles for a seamless vehicle user experience.

His story isn’t unique. I hear similar frustrations from customers around the globe:

• Costs are exploding as richer graphics, ADAS integration, and seamless connectivity push hardware and software to the limit.
• Schedules keep slipping because siloed hardware/software teams and manual integrations create long release cycles.
• Microprocessor-based systems are common in infotainment but come with hefty BOM costs, extra RAM, and complex PCBs that don’t scale to mass-market vehicles.

At the same time, drivers now expect their car to feel like their smartphone, fast, fluid, connected. Meeting that expectation without burning budget or time has become one of the biggest challenges in modern automotive development.

Enter the Infineon Drive Core Software bundles: Built for real-world teams 

To tackle this, Infineon created the Drive Core portfolio of pre-integrated software and tool bundles for their TRAVEO™ T2G and PSOC™ HV families. These bundles were designed with one clear goal: help teams start fast and scale confidently without reinventing the wheel.

TRAVEO™  T2G Drive Core Graphics: Optimal HMI performance without overhead

When I visited a customer working on a next-generation digital instrument cluster, they were struggling with the usual trade-off: “Do we go with an expensive microprocessor (MPU)-based system or do we try to squeeze the performance of a microcontroller (MCU) with integrated memory?”

With TRAVEO™ T2G Drive Core Graphics, that trade-off changes. 

• Infineon TRAVEO™ T2G MCUs consolidate capabilities of integrated flash, GPU and HSM in a Low Power ISO 26262 ASIL-B compliant SoC that is cost-effective for both infotainment and body control.
• IAR Embedded Workbench® for Arm® (Functional Safety edition) gives developers advanced code optimization and multi-core debugging with Embedded Trace Buffer (ETB) to ensure system reliability and performance.
• Qt Quick Ultralite graphics stack powers smooth, responsive UIs of 60 FPS in full HD with minimal memory footprint leveraging the Qt Creator and IAR compiler integration.
• Pre-validated Infineon SDL and Graphics libraries simplify low-level hardware integration.

The result: high-end graphics at MCU cost, faster boot, lower BOM, and the ability to bring premium experiences to more vehicle lines.

Infineon TRAVEO™ T2G microcontrollers (CYT2B, CYT3, CYT4 families) all use a coherent memory architecture where on-chip flash and SRAM are accessible to all cores via a common interconnect fabric. Developers typically run timing-sensitive I/O and control tasks on the M0+, whilst running display/infotainment code on the Cortex-M4/M7. The cores have separate registers, stacks, and execution flows, so bugs may involve interactions across cores, which the IAR multi-core asymmetric multiprocessing (AMP) debugging of both graphics and control code, provides a seamless experience to ensure software reliability.

PSOC™ Drive Core Control: ECUs 

Another conversation I had was with a Tier-1 supplier developing small mechatronic ECUs, lighting modules, HVAC controls, and parking sensors. They needed safety certification but couldn’t afford a heavyweight platform.

PSOC™ Drive Core Control is made for exactly this scenario: 

• IAR ISO 26262–certified C/C++ compiler and static analysis ensure MISRA C/C++ and CERT C/C++ code safety and traceability.
• ASPICE v3.1 qualified AutoPDL and MicroHAL simplify hardware bring-up.
• VECTOR MICROSAR IO with security features such as ECU authentication and software update authentication, as well as integration with low-cost bus systems like LIN or CAN.

With everything pre-integrated and validated for Automotive PSOC™, teams skip months of setup and can focus on delivering reliable, compliant control systems.

Why this matters now 

The shift to software-defined vehicles isn’t slowing down. But many embedded teams across vast value chains of suppliers and OEM divisions, still feel trapped by manual processes, fragmented toolchains, and long certification cycles.

The Drive Core Software bundles, together with IAR’s functional safety-certified toolchain, help teams modernize development and break through these barriers. The IAR toolchain integrates seamlessly with CMake, enabling reproducible, scalable builds for CI/CD pipelines and complex multi-core projects, making it easier to standardize workflows across driver information systems and body control ECUs while keeping development costs predictable.

This lets teams: 

• Cut integration risk and cost: No need to manage technical debt of proprietary ad-hoc integrations and abstraction layers.
• Speed time-to-market: use a tested, validated platform in early prototyping.
• Meet compliance requirements: With a safety-certified compiler and traceable development there is no need for extensive testing for compiler-qualification.
• Scale across vehicle lines and architectures: From Body/Gateway/Zone applications with ASIL compliance to high resolution graphical displays, one bundle supports it all.

Summary 

Every week,  automotive teams face the same dilemma: how to build secure, safe, and responsive automotive software under tighter budgets and timelines. The right partnerships can make all the difference.

With Infineon Drive Core Software bundles, powered by the IAR platform and best-in-class ecosystem partners, developers get a head start — a reliable, validated foundation that removes friction and enables them to progress.

If you’re building the next generation of safe, secure, real-time embedded systems for automotive, this is an approach worth exploring.

Learn more about the Infineon Drive Core Software bundles. For related resources, explore our Functional Safety solutions for automotive development.