Two major design trends for China’s new generation of automotive electronics

Today's automobile market is being impacted by the economic crisis. At the same time, the two major trends of improving safety performance and green environmental protection are also driving the development of a new generation of automobiles and guiding automobile manufacturers to produce differentiated products that are most consistent with consumers' intentions. Next-generation cars with optimized characteristics.
Expectations of the economy have made consumers' demand for new car functions primarily oriented toward safety. Advanced safety systems that can ensure the safety of drivers, passengers and pedestrians and effectively reduce the occurrence of accidents, such as advanced driving assistance systems without adding too much cost, will be a rapidly growing automotive electronics field and will have an important impact on the differentiated design of cars. In addition to passive safety systems such as airbags, more and more cars will adopt vision-based active safety systems in the future, including rearview systems, lane departure warning systems, driver attention warning systems, headlight control systems, and anti-collision systems. and automatic cruise control systems that can detect and distinguish objects under various lighting conditions.
In order to reduce energy consumption and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the requirements for green and environmentally friendly design of automobiles are becoming increasingly urgent. In addition to using many traditional technologies to make cars more environmentally friendly, various alternative forms of vehicle energy, whether they are alternative fuel (such as methanol, ethanol, etc.) vehicles, hybrid (gasoline and electric) vehicles or pure electric vehicles, have been It has become the highest priority design project for automobile manufacturers.
This article focuses on automotive safety and green design trends, discusses the key design challenges in achieving these functions, and shares the unique perspectives and latest solutions of leading automotive semiconductor manufacturers.
Visual Safety Monitoring System
Image sensors with high dynamic range, coupled with powerful processors, D, image sensors and complex algorithms, are creating a new era of automotive vision systems. For example, the warning symbol on the rearview camera system changes size and color to alert the driver to the detection of the nearest object. The Attention Alert system uses infrared cameras mounted on the driver's door and center console to record and analyze the driver's eye movements and generate an audible and visible alert when the driver's eyes are closed for longer than a normal blink. alarm. Lane departure warning systems use cameras to monitor the vehicle's position between road markings.
For image sensors in automotive safety applications, an emerging area of development is precisely these vision-based systems. However, image sensors for these applications face some key challenges, including low light sensitivity (or responsivity) under low-light conditions (less than 10%), extremely small package size, and a wide dynamic range of color. Said the senior product marketing manager of company m.
is a leading supplier of image sensors for vision-based automotive systems, offering a broad range of automotive sensor product lines, including D image sensors or M image sensors. The company's solution addresses these challenges with low light sensitivity greater than 1/2, in the smallest (M) package, and is 10% smaller than competing M devices. In addition, M Company is currently the only company that can provide megapixel sensors for emerging applications, such as panoramic applications. This sensor enables highly distortion-corrected images without any loss of image quality.
In these active safety systems, in addition to cameras, another major component is high-speed radar. Kang Xiaodun, Freescale Semiconductor Automotive Electronics Engineering Manager, said: With the improvement of image sensor technology, such as 3D technology, visual systems no longer have too many difficulties in terms of hardware, but there are still some challenges in software strategies and algorithms. High-speed radar is different. Since the active safety system requires a very high speed (the current standard is Hz), it is necessary to use advanced semiconductor technology to design new devices to meet the requirements.
Freescale is using silicon germanium technology to design radio frequency (R) chips for Hz millimeter wave radar, which is mainly used for vehicle distance detection purposes such as vehicle distance control systems and collision prevention safety systems. The chip is expected to cost 10% less than millimeter wave radar radio frequency chips using gallium arsenide technology.
The automotive vision system requires a digital signal processing unit to correct distortion of the real-time image. Although it is an image processing algorithm, the high bit rate of real-time images, the curvature of various lenses, and different distortion conditions all place high requirements on the performance of the algorithm and D.
The requirements for automotive design are high performance, low power consumption, competitive cost and highly interconnected devices. We have launched multiple and B processor products specifically for the automotive market. With multiple pin-compatible devices in these families, customers can expand one design into several implementations. D technology marketing manager Zhan Ke said.
The target application of the architecture is D based on vision, and the target application of the architecture is based on the field of radar. In addition, Company D supplies motion-sensing microelectromechanical systems (MM) inertial accelerometers and gyroscopes used in automotive safety systems. Earlier this year, D also cooperated with Infineon to develop next-generation automotive airbag systems.
In addition, when designing driver assistance system applications, in addition to considering the use of high-integration and low-power components, reliability should also be considered. Because the operational decisions made by such systems are related to the personal safety of people inside and outside the vehicle, as more and more electronic devices are used in cars, manufacturers must carefully select components that help develop reliable solutions. rq, the company’s marketing director for military and aerospace products, said.
For reliability concerns, the r reprogrammable series is provided. r adopts .?m node process and is a device that can reach d junction temperature. As the process scale shrinks, the number of transistors in semiconductor chips becomes more and more, and the leakage current under the threshold becomes more and more prominent, so the heat dissipation becomes larger and larger. However, r does not have such problems, so it can be used In extremely critical applications, such as various under-the-hood applications where temperature and/or reliability considerations are paramount.
Another automotive security application is anti-theft devices. Vision systems will also be introduced in anti-theft devices, another new area of development for image sensors for automotive safety applications. This scenario is briefly described: If an unauthorized person tries to drive, the anti-theft device will capture images or even videos and send this information to a central monitoring station. In addition, if someone breaks into the car, the anti-theft device will also alert the car owner.
However, passive keyless entry/remote keyless entry (R) plus engine anti-theft locking system (mmbzr) and engine control unit communication to achieve anti-theft control are still the mainstream designs. More advanced designs use additional wireless communication (such as) signals to achieve alarms after the vehicle is stolen and tracking of stolen vehicles, etc. Kang Xiaodun said: All these designs require good R design and wireless communication design, which should be one of the challenges in the design of such applications.
Zhang Jianchen, Greater China Sales Manager and Automotive Safety and Comfort Marketing Manager of NXP Semiconductors (hereinafter referred to as) Automotive Electronics Division, believes that another trend in anti-theft design is to upgrade the car engine anti-theft system and remote control key functions to (keyless system), thereby bringing a more convenient and comfortable experience to drivers and passengers, or using a solution that integrates engine anti-theft and remote key functions to replace discrete solutions to save costs and the size of the key.
Introduced the concept of future keys. Keys can be infinitely connected to mobile phones or D, making more applications possible, including monitoring of car conditions, car positioning functions (including tracking of stolen vehicles), travel planning, etc. . In addition, new H and other new security algorithms are provided to make the car entry (key and engine anti-theft) function more secure and reliable.
Hybrid energy reduction
In the long term, a key trend in automobile design is to reduce energy consumption and gas emissions. From an energy saving perspective, there are now different green car designs, some of which allow consumers to meet their needs with less budget. For example, the start/stop(r) function is an affordable energy-saving feature. This function allows the internal combustion engine to automatically pause when the car encounters a red light or traffic jam. The additional cost involved in the entire start/stop function is only US dollars, but it can save % to % of fuel, and the effect is very significant. If the car is driving in a city with very heavy traffic, it can even save up to % of fuel.
Another situation is that the lighter the car, the less fuel it needs. A typical car today has as many as several electronic control modules (such as B, automatic windows, rear seat entertainment system for children, etc.), all communicating with each other through copper wires. If R and similar technologies are used to run through a single bus system and completely eliminate copper wires, the weight of the car body can be significantly reduced. The automotive network bus products (including /bus transceivers) have lower power consumption and better M and D performance, making them an ideal solution to meet the needs of such applications.
Using alternative fuel vehicles and /H is an important part of the green design of automobiles. Compared with traditional vehicles, H's automotive powertrain system requires more electrical management systems, bringing new challenges in power management.
For /H, the main design challenge is to maintain battery energy density (capacity per kilogram of packaged battery mass) and then how to design an efficient inverter and how to design an efficient D/D converter to provide power to the load. power supply, and how to make the above devices cheaply with minimal weight and size. Said RD, senior manager of automotive market at Fairchild Semiconductor.
Fairchild Semiconductor’s Director of Body Electronics/Smart Switch Business Unit further explained: Specifically, challenges in power technology include: reducing the cost of packaging silicon devices (or other semiconductors) and reducing the footprint of the sealed power stage Area reduction of switching device losses improves thermal performance and simultaneously increases the operating temperature of silicon devices (or other semiconductors) and packages, as well as the use of newer switching technologies and power circuit topologies.
Solving these design challenges requires lightweight packaging materials, innovative compact cooling solutions, efficient power switching devices and control technologies, and improved use of magnetic materials in inductors and transformers to make these devices smaller and lighter . Fairchild Semiconductor's modules and family of devices are used to address these challenges, as well as any M controllers that can be converted to automotive applications to help reduce energy consumption.
Another key issue in H design is high voltage. This makes the design more challenging since lightweight, full-scale and plug-in H require high-voltage electronic systems between 1 and 2. The engine must be driven within a range that exceeds the limit depending on the type, size and purpose of the car. H's high-voltage architecture also requires the deployment of additional peripheral systems and energy and battery management units. Said Dr. HM.H, Vice President and General Manager of Automotive Products of International Rectifier Corporation (hereinafter referred to as R).
In addition, it is also necessary to integrate the electric power system and other new electronic systems into the new H car architecture. The new electronic systems include D/D converters that can realize energy transmission to and from the high-voltage power grid. , as well as many electronic drive systems such as air conditioning and power steering systems. Dr. H pointed out: This is a big challenge, because in the past, automotive electronic systems were used to working in a battery environment, but now they have to face the threats to equipment and life safety caused by high-voltage electronics, and these dangerous electronic systems must be removed. Electronic systems are safely isolated.
Provides comprehensive chipset solutions for nearly all power management applications in a modern H, including high voltage drivers, smart power, smart switches, M and high voltage B switches for low, medium and up to . The company recently launched a bond-wireless automotive product line. This revolutionary new concept of M packaging not only brings very low RD to the design of D/D converters and battery management systems, but also eliminates the need for bonding wires, making the parasitic inductance under fast switching conditions basically zero. .
It can be seen that although the main design challenge facing H currently lies in the technology of the battery itself. Batteries including the latest lithium-ion batteries have technical limitations and shortcomings. However, the latest batteries launched by leading automotive semiconductor manufacturers Battery management and power solutions are promoting continuous improvement of batteries to extend battery life and reduce cost, size and weight.
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