Source: Getty Images/crstrbrt

The collaboration offers a solution for safety-critical automotive architectures, aiming to reduce costs and accelerate production using NXP's S32K5 MCU family

Green Hills Software, recognized for its expertise in embedded safety and security, has announced a partnership with NXP Semiconductors to launch a hardware and software solution aimed at the development and deployment of safety-focused, mixed-criticality software-defined vehicle (SDV) zonal architectures using NXP's new S32K5 microcontroller unit (MCU) family. This collaboration introduces a software solution combining the ASIL-D safety-certified µ-velOSity real-time operating system (RTOS), the µ-visor hypervisor, Green Hills Compilers and the advanced MULTI debugger with system visualization tools. This suite of technologies is designed to enable original equipment manufacturers and tier 1 suppliers to consolidate mixed-criticality electronic control unit (ECU) functions safely, reduce system complexity, diminish development costs and accelerate time-to-production, thereby enhancing software reuse across new vehicle programs.

The need for such solutions arises from the automotive industry's shift toward consolidating software features with advanced electronics architectures, necessitating a flexible and performant compute platform. This platform must ensure safety, reduce costs and enhance system reliability, all while enabling rapid development and deployment of complex, multi-operating system and multicore ECU systems. According to David Vieira, senior director at NXP, and Dan Mender, vice president at Green Hills Software, this collaboration addresses these industry challenges by streamlining vehicle development processes without compromising on safety or performance.

The combined hardware-software solution is particularly well-suited for automotive applications requiring up to ISO 26262 ASIL-D certification, such as zone controllers and domain controllers. The S32K5 MCU family provides high performance, robust networking capabilities and innovative safety features at low power consumption levels. The software products from Green Hills Software offer a proven foundation for efficient application development in next-generation SDV architectures, featuring near-zero overhead hypervisor functionality for secure ECU consolidation, a small footprint RTOS and optimizing compilers for peak performance.

Safety and security are paramount, with the S32K5 supporting ASIL-D safety and ISO SAE 21434 automotive cybersecurity standards. The Green Hills technology stack is certified to ISO 26262 ASIL-D, with additional support services available for system design and certification. The MULTI integrated development environment (IDE) streamlines development further by offering advanced debugging capabilities, MISRA C adherence tools and static code analysis, significantly enhancing productivity and reducing time to market.

This comprehensive offering for the S32K5 MCU family was showcased at the embedded world event in March 2025 and is now available to early customers, complete with integration with the Synopsys Virtualizer S32K5 VDK for virtual model simulation, marking a significant advancement in the field of automotive electronics development.

This content may be AI-assisted and is composed, reviewed, edited and approved by S&P Global.

Contacts

Copyright © 2025 S&P Global Inc. All rights reserved.

These materials, including any software, data, processing technology, index data, ratings, credit-related analysis, research, model, software or other application or output described herein, or any part thereof (collectively the “Property”) constitute the proprietary and confidential information of S&P Global Inc its affiliates (each and together “S&P Global”) and/or its third party provider licensors. S&P Global on behalf of itself and its third-party licensors reserves all rights in and to the Property. These materials have been prepared solely for information purposes based upon information generally available to the public and from sources believed to be reliable.
Any copying, reproduction, reverse-engineering, modification, distribution, transmission or disclosure of the Property, in any form or by any means, is strictly prohibited without the prior written consent of S&P Global. The Property shall not be used for any unauthorized or unlawful purposes. S&P Global’s opinions, statements, estimates, projections, quotes and credit-related and other analyses are statements of opinion as of the date they are expressed and not statements of fact or recommendations to purchase, hold, or sell any securities or to make any investment decisions, and do not address the suitability of any security, and there is no obligation on S&P Global to update the foregoing or any other element of the Property. S&P Global may provide index data. Direct investment in an index is not possible. Exposure to an asset class represented by an index is available through investable instruments based on that index. The Property and its composition and content are subject to change without notice.

THE PROPERTY IS PROVIDED ON AN “AS IS” BASIS. NEITHER S&P GLOBAL NOR ANY THIRD PARTY PROVIDERS (TOGETHER, “S&P GLOBAL PARTIES”) MAKE ANY WARRANTY, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, FREEDOM FROM BUGS, SOFTWARE ERRORS OR DEFECTS, THAT THE PROPERTY’S FUNCTIONING WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED OR THAT THE PROPERTY WILL OPERATE IN ANY SOFTWARE OR HARDWARE CONFIGURATION, NOR ANY WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, AS TO ITS ACCURACY, AVAILABILITY, COMPLETENESS OR TIMELINESS, OR TO THE RESULTS TO BE OBTAINED FROM THE USE OF THE PROPERTY. S&P GLOBAL PARTIES SHALL NOT IN ANY WAY BE LIABLE TO ANY RECIPIENT FOR ANY INACCURACIES, ERRORS OR OMISSIONS REGARDLESS OF THE CAUSE. Without limiting the foregoing, S&P Global Parties shall have no liability whatsoever to any recipient, whether in contract, in tort (including negligence), under warranty, under statute or otherwise, in respect of any loss or damage suffered by any recipient as a result of or in connection with the Property, or any course of action determined, by it or any third party, whether or not based on or relating to the Property. In no event shall S&P Global be liable to any party for any direct, indirect, incidental, exemplary, compensatory, punitive, special or consequential damages, costs, expenses, legal fees or losses (including without limitation lost income or lost profits and opportunity costs or losses caused by negligence) in connection with any use of the Property even if advised of the possibility of such damages. The Property should not be relied on and is not a substitute for the skill, judgment and experience of the user, its management, employees, advisors and/or clients when making investment and other business decisions.

The S&P Global logo is a registered trademark of S&P Global, and the trademarks of S&P Global used within this document or materials are protected by international laws. Any other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

The inclusion of a link to an external website by S&P Global should not be understood to be an endorsement of that website or the website's owners (or their products/services). S&P Global is not responsible for either the content or output of external websites. S&P Global keeps certain activities of its divisions separate from each other in order to preserve the independence and objectivity of their respective activities. As a result, certain divisions of S&P Global may have information that is not available to other S&P Global divisions. S&P Global has established policies and procedures to maintain the confidentiality of certain nonpublic information received in connection with each analytical process. S&P Global may receive compensation for its ratings and certain analyses, normally from issuers or underwriters of securities or from obligors. S&P Global reserves the right to disseminate its opinions and analyses. S&P Global Ratings’ public ratings and analyses are made available on its sites, www.spglobal.com/ratings (free of charge) and www.capitaliq.com (subscription), and may be distributed through other means, including via S&P Global publications and third party redistributors.