Infotainment System Data Paths

Figure 2-1 is a block diagram of one possible infotainment system including driver awareness, navigation, and entertainment sources and liquid crystal displays (LCD’s). Other possible inputs to this system which are also shown include gaming and personal audio device inputs (via a customer convenience port supporting interfaces such as USB, IEEE 1394, etc.), Bluetooth, and UWB.

Figure 2-1: Typical High End Infotainment System

As can be seen from the block diagram, a typical infotainment system can be replete with interfaces. Some of these interfaces can be implemented best low to medium data rate networks, such as CAN (the Controller Area Network) and MOST (the Media Oriented System Transport). On the other hand, other interfaces (in bold), such as from controller to video display or from camera to controller, must be designed to support video transmission at potentially very high data rates, and may be more optimally implemented as point-to-point high bandwidth link. Although such a system as shown in Figure 2-1 has in the past been seen only in high end cars, the future trend is for increasing penetration into mid-range automotive segments. With regard to the video sources (controller, DVD, or camera) and sinks (typically LCD displays or camera controllers), some additional trends can be identified and are highlighted in Table 2-1:

Although the general trend is towards higher resolution displays, hopes for a common video interface standard are predicated on the need for the interface to be able to support multiple formats, as listed in Table 2-2. The typical pixel clock frequencies and required data rates shown assume a frame rate of 60Hz and a color depth of 24 bits, but the exact frequency depends on the blanking interval. Also worthy of note is that the WQVGA format is proprietary to some automotive equipment manufacturers. Currently, deluxe cars typically make use of 6-inch to 7-inch TFT LCD’s with QVGA to WVGA resolutions.