Blackberry Tech Collaboration Claims UX “Revolution”

Paul Myles

TU-Editor

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14th October 2021

Blackberry has announced a collaboration with technology giants Google and Qualcomm to “revolutionize” the in-cabin user experience.

The company used its BlackBerry Security Summit 21 to launch a new suite of technologies it claims will help automakers deliver a more unified cockpit experience to drivers within a shorter time span while also driving down production costs. This will be brought about, it says, with the availability of it QNX Hypervisor and VIRTIO-based reference design to virtualize Android Automotive OS on the 3rd Generation Snapdragon Automotive Cockpit Platform.

This is seen as part of the automotive industry’s consolidation of various in-cabin functions such as digital instrument clusters, infotainment and heads-up display into unified digital cockpit architectures all running on a single, extremely powerful underlying system-on-chip (SoC). This mixing of architecture tightens the integration between functions to deliver a “cockpit domain controller solution” supporting a unified user experience for the consumer while also reducing overall cost.

Blackberry says VIRTIO is an open standard that defines the interface between Android Automotive OS and the underlying hypervisor to deliver the full Android Automotive OS experience.  The combination of the QNX Hypervisor and QNX’s VIRTIO implementation allows Android Automotive OS to run out of the box without modification. This allows systems deployed in the field to easily upgrade to newer versions of Android Automotive OS as they are released.

While the VIRTIO interface is standardized, the implementation of the interface is not. The BlackBerry QNX reference has been extended to support dynamic graphics sharing between Android Automotive OS applications in the infotainment domain and the digital instrument cluster, shared Vulkan Drawstream support and system-wide audio management to holistically manage all sound within the vehicle. The BlackBerry QNX VIRTIO implementation adds 10 additional virtual devices to the existing 25 currently available in the QNX Hypervisor family of products.

— Paul Myles is a seasoned automotive journalist based in Europe. Follow him on Twitter @Paulmyles_