Telematics and infotainment system is cool

Wind River Systems has given Ixfin Magneti Marelli Sistemi Elettronici a "Cool Customer Design" award for its telematics and infotainment system.

Wind River Systems has given Ixfin Magneti Marelli Sistemi Elettronici a "Cool Customer Design" award for its telematics and infotainment system, reckoned to be the most comprehensive integrated navigation, communication and entertainment system for the automotive industry.

Ixfin Magneti Marelli Sistemi Elettronici used Wind River car infotainment technology to speed the product development lifecycle.

Currently, numerous car manufacturers installed the telematics and infotainment system, including the Alfa 147, Fiat Stilo, Fiat Ducato, Fiat Doblo, Fiat Ulysse, Lancia Phedra, Peugeot 307, Peugeot 807, Citroen C3, Citroen C5, Citroen C8 and the Maserati Spyder and Maserati Coupe.

The telematics and infotainment system, the latest in a line of innovations from Ixfin Magneti Marelli Sistemi Elettronici, integrates a satellite navigator, a dual-band GSM telephone, voice commands, text-to-speech, a radio and CD player supporting MP3.

Telematics services include emergency and breakdown calls as well as the possibility to connect to an external contact centre to allow users to access a wide range of real-time travel information services from their driver's seat.

"With development windows in the automotive industry shrinking, using commercial off-the-shelf software from Wind River has been critical to meeting our target market window for the telematics and infotainment system", said Antonino Damiano, Telematics Design Manager, Ixfin Magneti Marelli Sistemi Elettronici.

"Wind River provided Ixfin Magneti Marelli Sistemi Elettronici with a complete pre-integrated development environment critical to the design success of a very feature-rich application and has also been an excellent partner to us throughout the entire design cycle".

By standardising on Wind River technology, Ixfin Magneti Marelli Sistemi Elettronici was able to meet its primary design goals of supporting a range of processor architectures, hardware flexibility, and a real-time operating system (RTOS) with the ability to handle numerous tasks simultaneously without penalising the feature set.

"Cost control and time to market are two of the most difficult challenges facing automotive OEMs", said Federico De Sario, SouthWest Regional Director, Wind River.

"Ixfin Magneti Marelli Sistemi Elettronici needed to integrate multiple communication links and enabling technologies while at the same time deliver a prototype in less than nine months.

By taking advantage of Wind River technology, Ixfin Magneti Marelli Sistemi Elettronici was able to focus its efforts on building value added features, rather than integrating technologies".

Ixfin Magneti Marelli Sistemi Elettronici, a global leader in the design and production of high-tech components and systems for the automotive industry, has worked with Wind River for more than four years on different iterations of its car-infotainment systems.

Through a multilevel partnership with Wind River, Ixfin Magneti Marelli Sistemi Elettronici has been able to reduce its development costs without sacrificing innovation.

Ixfin Magneti Marelli Sistemi Elettronici used the integrated connectivity and real-time operating power of Wind River's leading VxWorks RTOS and Tornado integrated development environment (IDE) to build the first telematics and car infotainment system capable of seamlessly integrating a broad range of applications into one compact device.

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