Resources Industries: Recreational Vehicles

Balancing Innovation with Compliance for Automotive HMI Applications

Posted on by Michael Hill

Continuous innovation in automotive HMIs is crucial for OEMs to enhance user experience, ensure safety and stay competitive. This not only differentiates their products but also drives market growth and brand loyalty. The big challenge for OEMs is navigating the balance between innovation and compliance, particularly when it comes to reliability, functional safety and cybersecurity.

Understanding the Automotive Standards

Automotive industry regulators have developed key standards to ensure the reliability, safety and security of automotive applications. OEMs must design and develop to these standards within their HMI development projects in order to deliver high-quality products that meet the stringent demands of the modern automotive industry.

While these standards each have distinct objectives, their overlap is crucial for developing reliable, safe and secure automotive applications.

Here is a brief overview of each standard.

Automotive Software Process Improvement and Capability dEtermination (ASPICE) is a process assessment model that provides a framework for evaluating and improving the software development processes of automotive suppliers and manufacturers. ASPICE focuses on process capability and maturity, ensuring that software development practices are robust and consistent.

ISO 26262 is a standard that addresses the safety of electrical and electronic systems within road vehicles. It provides guidelines for managing the functional safety lifecycle, from concept to decommissioning. The primary goal of ISO 26262 is to ensure that safety-related systems function correctly and mitigate risks associated with system failures.

ISO 21434 is a standard that addresses the security of automotive systems against cyber threats. It provides a framework for managing cybersecurity risks throughout the vehicle lifecycle, from design and development to production and maintenance. The standard aims to protect vehicles from malicious attacks that could compromise safety, privacy and data integrity.

Integrating While Innovating

It is possible for OEMs to ensure compliance with ASPICE, ISO 26262 and ISO 21434 while fostering innovation and excellence in automotive engineering. Here are a few strategies for effectively striking that balance.

Adopt a Risk-Based Approach – Focus on identifying and mitigating the most significant risks first. This allows for innovative solutions to be developed while ensuring that critical safety and security requirements are met. Then use iterative development cycles to continuously assess and address risks, allowing for incremental innovation while maintaining compliance.

Foster a Culture of Compliance and Innovation – Regularly train employees on the importance of compliance and the latest standards. Encourage a mindset that views compliance as an enabler of innovation rather than a hindrance. Promote collaboration between compliance experts and innovation teams. This will ensure that innovative ideas are evaluated for compliance early in the development process.

Leverage Advanced Tools and Tech – Use tools that integrate ASPICE, ISO 26262 and ISO 21434 requirements into the development process. These tools can automate compliance checks and streamline development activities.

Simulation and Testing – Employ advanced simulation and testing tools to validate innovative solutions against compliance requirements. This helps identify potential issues early and reduces the risk of non-compliance.

Implement Agile Methodologies – Adopt agile methodologies that allow for flexibility and rapid iteration. Agile practices can help teams quickly adapt to new compliance requirements and incorporate innovative features.

Continuous Improvement – Emphasize continuous improvement in both compliance and innovation processes. Regularly review and refine development practices to enhance both compliance and innovation.

Collaborative Innovation – Partner with suppliers and service providers who have the training and expertise to implement these standards in your HMI projects. Not only does this ensure that a project is designed and delivered with compliance standards at the forefront, but OEM designers and developers obtain precious knowledge and know-how from those experts.

Resource Allocation – Allocate resources effectively to ensure that both innovation and compliance activities are adequately supported. This includes investing in training, tools and processes that facilitate compliance without stifling innovation. If a team needs to be scaled up to cover expertise needs, engage professionals with an excellent track record for safety, security and innovation.

Altia: Partner in Innovation and Compliance

Balancing innovation with compliance in automotive application development requires a strategic and integrated approach. With the right practices and partners in place, this is a very achievable goal.

Altia stands out as a valuable partner in this journey. With extensive, production-proven experience in automotive HMI development and industry-validated adoption of ASPICE, ISO 26262 and certified ISO 21434 expertise, Altia offers the expertise and tools necessary to seamlessly integrate compliance into automotive HMI innovation processes. By partnering with Altia, OEMs can ensure their HMI projects not only meet regulatory requirements but also push the boundaries of what is possible in automotive technology.

Let Altia help you strike the perfect balance between innovation and compliance, ensuring your products are both cutting-edge and reliable. Get in touch today.

Altia DeepScreen Code Generator Powers NXP i.MX 95 Applications Processors

Posted on by Cheryl Falk

Altia, a leading provider of graphical user interface (GUI) design tools, proudly announces its support for scaling Altia DeepScreen to NXP’s latest i.MX 95 application processors. NXP is offering an impressive range of i.MX 95 devices to suit a variety of cost and performance requirements—and Altia’s GUI development software is uniquely suited to support embedded GUI development across the i.MX 95 product line.

The i.MX 95 applications processor family enables a broad range of Altia graphical user interface applications in automotive, auto-adjacent, industrial and more. The i.MX 95 family capabilities include a multi-core application domain with up to six Arm Cortex®-A55 cores, as well as two independent real-time domains for safety/low-power and high-performance real-time use, consisting of high-performance Arm Cortex-M7 and Arm Cortex-M33 CPUs, combining low-power, real-time and high-performance processing. Aligning with Altia’s mission to deliver safety solutions for mission-critical GUIs, the i.MX 95 family is designed to enable ISO 26262 ASIL-B and SIL-2 IEC 61508 compliant platforms.

Altia’s advanced GUI editor and graphics code generator are exceptionally well-suited for GUI projects targeting the i.MX 95 family of application processors. Altia simplifies the transition from artist’s graphics drawn in Sketch, Figma or 3D graphics software packages to deployable graphics code. Companies who use Altia to design and deploy their production embedded GUIs reduce development time and costs compared to competitive solutions. Collaboration is further enhanced by Altia CloudWare™, where users can immediately test drive and begin development of their GUIs for i.MX 95 remotely with Altia’s hardware-and-software-in-the-cloud platform. Altia’s automatic code generation minimizes RAM usage and optimizes performance, making it an essential tool for developers working with embedded GUIs.

Altia’s VP of Engineering, Michael Hill, states, “Altia has a long, successful history of supporting NXP silicon—and our team is proud to offer code generation solutions for the NXP i.MX 95 family of application processors. Our initial findings suggest that this processor combined with Altia-generated graphics code performs at twice the speed of the previous generation. This will be a powerful combination of technologies for all embedded applications.”

Designers and developers interested in demoing Altia with i.MX 95 should visit https://altia.com/get-started/.

About Altia

Altia is a software company that provides graphical user interface design and development tools that can be used from concept to final production code. Our GUI editor, Altia Design, offers development teams the capability to implement a model-based development process enabling clear team communication and accelerated user interface development. Our code generator, Altia DeepScreen, supports a vast range of low- to high-powered processors from a variety of industry-leading silicon providers. Altia generates pure C source code that is optimized to take full advantage of hardware resources. Graphics code generated by Altia is driving millions of displays worldwide – from automotive instrument clusters, HUDs and radios to thermostats, washing machines and medical devices.

Our mission is to get the best automotive, medical and consumer interfaces into production in the shortest time on the lowest cost hardware.

Altia was founded in 1991. Its customers include automotive OEMs and Tier 1s like Continental Automotive, Denso, Stellantis, Ford Motor Company, General Motors, Honda, Renault, Marelli, Nippon Seiki, Valeo, Visteon and more – plus leading consumer device manufacturers like Electrolux, Whirlpool, NordicTrack and many others.

For more information about Altia, visit www.altia.com or email [email protected].

Meet Altia at Car.HMI Europe 2024

Posted on by Cheryl Falk

Altia, a leading provider of GUI development tools and software solutions, will join premier automotive OEMs and solution providers at Car.HMI Europe 2024. This event, which offers attendees powerful opportunities to network with other industry leaders and learn about latest automotive trends, innovations and challenges, will be at the Hotel Titanic Chaussee in Berlin, Germany on June 26-28, 2024.

The Altia team will be at the event to showcase our complete cockpit HMI platform that helps automotive OEMs and Tier 1s design, develop and deploy first-class embedded displays for any application and any hardware. We look forward to connecting with HMI experts at the show to discuss how Altia’s software solutions can help bring their digital cockpit experience to life. We also look forward to sharing more about Altia’s latest product, the Altia Plugin for Figma. This plugin, now available at no cost for current users of Altia Design 13.4, gives designers the power to get their Figma graphics to embedded hardware easily and with the lowest possible memory requirements.

If you will be at the show, please stop by and see us at the showcase to see Altia’s production-proven software running on automotive-grade hardware. Meet with our team to talk about how to design functional safety and first-class UX for your cockpit displays.

We look forward to seeing you in Berlin!

Event Details:

When: Wednesday, June 26 – Friday, June 28, 2024
Where: Hotel Titanic Chausee – Chausseestraße 30, 10115 Berlin, Germany
Register: Home | Car.HMI Europe (car-hmi.com)
Connect with us before the show: [email protected]

Figma Plugin is Now Freely Available for Altia GUI Software Users

Posted on by Cheryl Falk

Altia announces the release of Altia Exporter for Figma. This new plugin gives designers the power to get their Figma graphics to embedded hardware easily and with the lowest possible memory requirements. Available today on the Figma community, current users of Altia Design 13.4 and above can now use the Altia Exporter at no extra cost.

This new product further extends Altia’s flexibility to leverage artwork from industry-leading tools to include Figma. With Altia Exporter for Figma, designers save time and effort because they can import Figma assets to the Altia toolchain and begin designing their GUI without any need to rebuild, rename or restructure the original components. Leveraging Altia’s powerful features like Stamp Object, developers can easily optimize their Figma designs for embedded hardware—saving precious memory while delivering best performance on chip.

“Companies around the world count on Altia to deliver highly efficient, production-ready code that is true to their artists’ concepts. With the new Altia Exporter for Figma, we continue to empower designers to create in the tools that they want while giving developers the power to select the embedded hardware they want and get the best looking, best performing UI and UX to market,” stated Mike Juran, Altia CEO.

The Altia Exporter for Figma is available today at no cost to Altia GUI software users (version 13.4 and above) on the Figma Community. For more information or to request a demo of this new product, visit altia.com/get-started or email [email protected].

About Altia

Altia is a software company that provides graphical user interface design and development tools that can be used from concept to final production code. Our GUI editor, Altia Design, offers development teams the capability to implement a model-based development process enabling clear team communication and accelerated user interface development. Our code generator, Altia DeepScreen, supports a vast range of low- to high-powered processors from a variety of industry-leading silicon providers. Altia generates pure C source code that is optimized to take full advantage of hardware resources. Graphics code generated by Altia is driving millions of displays worldwide – from automotive instrument clusters, HUDs and radios to thermostats, washing machines and medical devices.

Our mission is to get the best automotive, medical and consumer interfaces into production in the shortest time on the lowest cost hardware.

Altia was founded in 1991. Its customers include automotive OEMs and Tier 1s like Continental Automotive, Denso, Stellantis, Ford Motor Company, General Motors, Honda, Renault, Magneti Marelli, Nippon Seiki, Valeo, Visteon and more – plus leading consumer device manufacturers like Electrolux, Whirlpool, NordicTrack and many others.

For more information about Altia, visit www.altia.com or email [email protected].

Altia Achieves ASPICE Level 2 for Automotive Industry Standard HMI Development Software

Posted on by Cheryl Falk

Altia announced today that its HMI development software has achieved Automotive SPICE® (ISO/IEC 33061, formerly ISO/IEC 15504) Level 2. This achievement highlights Altia’s commitment to providing world-class automotive software capabilities and processes. Specifically, ASPICE Level 2 provides OEMs and Tier 1s with the confidence to leverage Altia’s software in mission-critical display applications for the automotive cockpit.

“Altia is committed to providing our customers with industry-proven, high-performing, innovative automotive platforms—and our ASPICE Level 2 achievement reflects that commitment,” said Michael Hill, Vice President of Engineering at Altia. “We are proud to receive this prestigious distinction—and we look forward to continuing to deliver on that commitment.”

Automotive SPICE, Software Process Improvement and Capability dEtermination, was developed to address the software development needs of the automotive industry. To achieve this status, Altia was required to meet strict requirements, including having:

  • A defined and documented software development process that covers the entire software development lifecycle, from requirements management to software testing and maintenance.
  • A management process that ensures the planning, monitoring and control of our software development activities and resources.
  • A trained and competent staff able to perform the software development tasks according to the defined process.
  • A quality assurance process that evaluates the quality of our software products and processes and identifies and resolves any issues or defects.
  • A configuration management process that manages the changes and versions of our software products and artifacts.
  • A verification and validation process that ensures that our software products meet the specified requirements and expectations of our customers and stakeholders.

These requirements are based on the Process Assessment Model (PAM) of ASPICE, which defines a set of guidelines and criteria for assessing the capability level of software development processes in the automotive industry. More information about the PAM can be found in this link.

The ASPICE Level 2 assessment was conducted by members of the Continental Automotive Systems teams from Europe and North America. Altia successfully achieved ASPICE Level 2 on November 21, 2023.

“Broadly applying the lessons learned on the journey to ASPICE Level 2 certification facilitates the development and release of exceptional software on a predictable cadence,” says Mike Morgan, Director of Product Delivery.

About Altia

Altia is a software company that provides graphical user interface design and development tools that can be used from concept to final product code. Our GUI editor, Altia Design, offers development teams the capability to implement a model-based development process for clear communication and accelerated user interface development. Our code generator, Altia DeepScreen, supports a vast range of low- to high-powered processors from a variety of industry-leading silicon providers. Altia generates pure C source code that is optimized to take full advantage of hardware resources. Graphics code generated by Altia is driving millions of displays worldwide – from automotive instrument clusters, HUDs and radios to thermostats, washing machines and healthcare monitors. Our mission is to get the best automotive, medical and consumer interfaces into production in the shortest time on the lowest cost hardware.

Altia was founded in 1991. Its customers include automotive OEMs and Tier 1s like Continental Automotive, Denso, Stellantis, Ford Motor Company, General Motors, Honda, Renault, Magneti Marelli, Nippon Seiki, Valeo, Visteon and more – plus leading consumer device manufacturers like Electrolux, Whirlpool, NordicTrack and many others.

For more information about Altia, visit www.altia.com or email [email protected].

Follow Altia on LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube.

Collaboration Improves Designer-Supplier Process and Final Product

Posted on by Cheryl Falk

“I want a blue line between these sections,” says the UX designer. Into the spec doc it goes: “add a blue line between these sections to improve UI.” It seems simple enough until several stakeholders and contributors interact with the little blue line at different times in the product development process.

“Will it be sky blue or royal blue?” asks marketing. “Should we make it dotted, dashed or solid?” The team agrees that a dotted, royal blue line is best.

With the internal back and forth resolved, it’s the supplier’s turn to ask for design clarifications. “The resolution of our hardware makes dotted lines look fuzzy unless they’re at least five pixels thick, and the line gets distorted at the bezel if it extends to the edge of the screen.”

Now it’s back to internal discussions. Marketing lobbies for hardware with better graphics to bring the original vision to life. Procurement wants to know if there are savings to be had by using a solid black line. The supplier offers a friendly reminder that this iteration isn’t accounted for by the original contract, so now might be the time to renegotiate.

When this collaboration nightmare becomes more like a recurring dream, it burns resources, delays time to market and ultimately shows in the quality of the product. A streamlined process for product development must clarify communication between stakeholders.

Designer to Supplier – Where’s the Disconnect?

Collaborative frustrations can yield feelings of tension every time there’s a handoff of information or responsibility: especially from designer to engineer and engineer to supplier. The real problem isn’t the other teams but the gap in collaboration that separates the teams. Written spec docs become like one long game of telephone:

  • The market demands features.
  • The designer ideates.
  • The engineer implements a technical plan.
  • The supplier executes the plan to deliver a product.

Stakeholders work at different physical locations, often sharing information about visual designs in a text-based format. The finer details get lost in translation until something as simple as a blue line can get blown out of proportion.

Model-Based Development, Functional Specs and Clear Collaboration

Model-based development gets product designers and engineers on the same page. Advancing from written spec docs to model-based graphical user interface (GUI) development solutions eliminates ambiguity, clarifies requirements and reduces rounds of back and forth. Functional specs—in the form of GUI models—replace written spec documents, so everyone is looking at the same blue line. It’s right where it belongs: between the two relevant sections on the GUI model.

Everybody benefits from not having to discuss the blue line ad nauseam.

Rapid prototyping of GUI models accelerates iterative design among internal teams. Stakeholders in various physical locations can collaborate with tight feedback loops. Usability testing can start earlier in the design process, which eliminates supplier-side iterations down the line. Innovative processes for software design, requirement development and code generation create a ripple effect throughout the entire product development lifecycle.

Software Requirements and Hardware Selection

Model-based development yields GUI models which become functional specs to show what the design will look like once implemented. When the engineers can see exactly how the blue line is supposed to look, they can determine which hardware is required to get the right look.

If a design will only look good in high definition, the supplier should expect to use premium hardware that will perform as expected. For simple GUIs that don’t require a lot of fine detail, the supplier should know to use the budget chipsets instead of trying to upcharge for anything unnecessarily advanced.

Bringing implementation closer to the design phase prevents unforeseen problems at the deadline. If a high-end human-machine interface (HMI) design is likely to strain the hardware’s memory and bandwidth, it’s better to find a solution earlier. For example, a low-power code solution can help prevent memory and bandwidth constraints from becoming problematic.

Internal vs. External Iterations

Even with streamlined collaboration, occasional conversations about blue lines and related topics might be unavoidable. The good news is that those conversations can be brief and conclusive instead of confusing and ongoing. Internal stakeholders quickly align around a functional spec in their internal meetings. Once everything has been accounted for in a fully functional spec, the design is set and ready to go to the supplier.

With this process, any external iterations will be implementation-specific and unrelated to redesign. Delivering a turnkey design to suppliers saves them time and resources—all they have to do is execute a design that has every detail accounted for in the model. This is how products get to market as designed, on budget, and ahead of schedule.

Next Steps: Improving Collaboration to Build Better Products Faster

Model-based human-machine interface design helps designers express their visions clearly. Engineers can see the design, so they know exactly what is required in the technical implementation. Suppliers receive a functional model instead of written instructions and even have clear guidance about how to select the appropriate hardware to execute the final product.

A truly comprehensive collaboration solution offers a string of tools to cover the entire product development process. For example, a GUI editor combined with a code generator creates one collaboration suite to take a project from beginning to end. Nothing gets lost in translation.

Investing in the collaboration workflow can save a project, but the benefits don’t end with that one project. Hyundai took complete control of its embedded display design to make future innovation more efficient, too. Gaining control of the collaborative process pays off in every product development project, especially when working with new suppliers to advance previous work.

Getting Started with Altia

Altia’s graphical user interface design and development environment is built to function holistically, with the GUI editor and code generator working in concert. The combination of these two functions is what closes communication gaps between stakeholders. To ease the transition, Altia’s service team helps bridge knowledge gaps to get the initial project to market on time and under budget.

If your GUI project is already underway but perhaps headed in the wrong direction, all is not lost. The Altia Design Jumpstart Bundle includes the development tools and support required to give your GUI a lift off the ground. Get started today, and let’s make it to market the right way.

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