MOST (Media Oriented Systems Transport)

Basic Description

MOST was originally designed by Oasis SiliconSystems AG (now SMSC) in cooperation with BMW, Becker Radio, and DaimlerChrysler for multimedia applications in the automotive environment. It was intended to be implemented on an optical fiber, so the bit rates of this bus system are much higher than previous automotive bus technologies. Since 1997, seventeen international automotive manufacturers and more than fifty key component suppliers including automotive electrical suppliers and audio-video manufacturers have contributed to this technology. MOST buses provide an optical solution for automotive peripherals like car radios, CD and DVD players, and GPS navigation systems.

The latest implementation of the MOST standard is MOST150. MOST150 has five kinds of communication channels. One for the control of ECUs, one for packet data (e.g. navigation graphics), one for synchronous transmission of multiple audio streams, one for synchronous video streaming, and one Ethernet channel for interfacing with internet protocol applications.

Key Features

Maximum Data Rates: 150 Mbps
Layers: All Seven Layers of the ISO/OSI Reference Model for Data Communication
Network Topology: Point to Point via a Ring Topology but Star Configurations
Other Feature: Plug and Play; 60 Channels, 15 MPEG1 Channels for user configuration
Standards: ISO 7498-1 (OSI Model)

For More Information

[1] MOST Bus, Wikipedia.

[2] MOST Cooperation, The MOST Cooperation website.

[3] High-Speed Networking for Driver Assistance over MOST, SAE Vehicle Engineering, Oct. 16, 2012.