Media Oriented Systems Transport (MOST) Co-op agrees Roadmap for Expanding Standard

Our focus in 2007 will be on bridging the gap between the automotive infotainment and the consumer electronics world, states Henry Muyshondt, Technical Coordinator of the MOST Cooperation. Customers can now buy all kinds of new consumer electronics devices for digital entertainment or rear-seat entertainment and want to safely and conveniently use them in their cars. So it is on us to specify how to integrate these devices in our vehicles such that we can satisfy the customer expectation but do not get into a time race with the CE industry with cycles of only months compared to ours of several years.

Since the product cycles of the automotive industry differ by orders of magnitude from the consumer world the MOST solution will be a gateway connecting the consumer world to the in-vehicle platform. The clear trend is to enable the automotive system to integrate the required features instead of providing every upcoming attribute. With the gateway MOST will offer a way to successfully decouple the automotive development cycles from the consumer electronics (CE) cycles. The MOST Cooperation also works together with the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) to drive the convergence of consumer electronics and the automobile over gateways to aftermarket components as iPod and MP3 player cradles, Bluetooth, etc. One project is to develop a MOST-based serial protocol for control of portable media players to go with CEA 2017 Portable Media Player Connector standard. In cooperation with MOST the CEA already published in 2006 the Standard CEA 2012A MOST Networking Application to add USB as the preferred method to connect to aftermarket components. The MOST Cooperation had released the AuxIn Specification Rev 3.0 on Auxiliary Input function block to support content navigation. It has already been implemented in several OEM head units.

The MOST Cooperation was founded in 1998 by BMW, DaimlerChrysler, Harman/Becker and OASIS SiliconSystems (acquired by SMSC in March 2005) to establish and refine a common standard for today's and tomorrow's needs of automotive multimedia networks. At first a specification for infotainment data transfer in cars, the network is now also implemented in consumer electronics applications. In 2007 the Cooperation includes 15 international carmakers and 73 key component suppliers all working with MOST Technology and contributing towards its innovation. For more information see www.mostcooperation.com.