NXP Semiconductors released the new S32K5 series of automotive microcontrollers (MCUs) on March 11, which adopts the Arm Cortex M7+R52+M4 multi-core design, up to 800MHz, and is equipped with 41MB of MRAM (using 16nm FinFET process and integrated). This product is the first MCU solution in the automotive industry to achieve this technological breakthrough, and engineering samples will be provided to core customers in the third quarter of 2025.
In addition to the Arm Cortex CPU core, the S32K5 also integrates a dedicated neural network accelerator, the eIQ Neutron NPU, to support real-time sensor data processing; a built-in automotive-grade Ethernet switching core forms a collaborative network architecture with the S32N vehicle processor to achieve network design standardization and software reuse.
“The S32K5 pushes the boundaries of performance while maintaining the balance of safety and performance required for domain control solutions,” said Manuel Alves, senior vice president of NXP’s Automotive Microcontroller Division. “With the CoreRide platform, automakers and Tier-1 suppliers can accelerate the development of domain control architectures.”
The core innovations of this NXP product are as follows:
- Hardware-enforced isolation architecture supports ASIL-D functional safety level integration
- MRAM write speed is 15 times faster than traditional embedded flash memory, greatly improving OTA update efficiency
- Integrated post-quantum cryptography (PQC) security accelerator to build full life cycle security protection
- Optimized accelerator cluster covers key loads such as network protocol conversion and digital signal processin