Renesas Electronics Corp. announced the availability of its V2X products, which the company says will help accelerate the arrival of autonomous driving.

The products include two system-on-chips (SoCs) meant to play a role the development process for vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communication systems.

The R-Car W1R system-on-chip. Image source: RenesasOne product includes the R-Car W1R 760 megahertz (MHz) band wireless SoC. This SoC has a security engine meant for V2X systems designed for the Japanese, U.S., and European markets. The second product consists of the W2H SoC combined with the R-Car W2R 5.9 GHz band wireless communication SoC. It was developed for U.S. and European markets.

The company says the new SoCs will encourage system developers to develop systems that support the corresponding V2X standard. Renesas also makes development starter kits that will enable system developers to start application software development, potentially leading to reductions in the development time for V2X systems.

In 2015, Renesas launched the R-Car W1R, which conforms to Japan's wireless communications standards and is used in the ITS Connect1 V2V and V2I communications system. It is currently commercially deployed in the V2X wireless SoC market. The R-Car W1R was adopted in Denso Corp.'s in-vehicle ITS units. These units are also used in Toyota's Crown, Prius, and Lexus RX models for displaying traffic signal violation, cross traffic, and pedestrian warnings at traffic signals using car and infrastructure communications.

One challenge for developers of communications systems is that various countries have different communication frequencies, communication standards, and security standards, making it hard to optimize devices for each region. Renesas says that the V2X kit products ease that obstacle by combining either the R-Car W1R or R-Car W2R with the R-Car W2H, making it feasible to build optimal systems for each region at a low cost.

Mass production of the R-Car W2H is scheduled to begin in October 2017 and is expected to reach a volume of 300,000 units a month by 2019.