We heard a couple of days back that Intel was working on dedicated Atom processors for in-car infotainment systems, but we weren’t sure of the specifics at the time. Here’s the rundown.
Intel has launched a non-profit organization called the Genivi Alliance along with co-founding members BMW Group, Delphi, General Motors, Magneti Marelli, PSA Peugeot Citreon, Visteon and Wind River in order to develop an open source In-Vehicle Infotainment (IVI) reference design.
Genivi hopes a shared reference design and software architecture will drive innovation, reduce time-to-market, and result in lower prices for car buyers looking for some fancy in-car entertainment and navigation integration.
Apparently development of the Genivi platform is well on its way to a summer 2009 release, along with those Intel Atom Z5xx and the Wind River Linux platform. It seems Intel is playing the best of both worlds, also supplying Atom chips for Microsoft’s Auto 4.0 infotainment system which the infamously proprietary company will undoubtedly license for a fee.