Smart car from concept to reality

With the rapid development of automotive technology, the concept of smart cars has become the hottest topic at the moment. This year's CES show, Intel, Qualcomm, NXP Semiconductors and other major semiconductor manufacturers have focused on the smart car series of chip products. In the future, the chip will play an increasingly important role in the automotive entertainment system, body network, advanced driver assistance systems, power systems, satellite navigation and other fields. In these promising automotive electronics fields, how will semiconductor manufacturers lay out?

Workshop communications open high-speed network business opportunities

The main challenges facing the future of automotive technology are to reduce the impact of the environment, improve driving safety, and achieve barrier-free communication between people, objects, and cars through mobile technology. This is one of the basic consensuses formed by the industry. Therefore, that is to say, the core element of the development of smart cars in the future is to establish an intelligent platform that effectively connects people, cars, and society so that the development of the automobile industry can face traffic, environment, energy, security, and entertainment. Problems such as information are really solved. High-speed, safe, and stable automotive transmission network chips have become key components in the future.

It is to see this trend, this year, CES, affected by the smart phone market peaked Qualcomm began to "heavily assembled" vehicle network communications market, launched a variety of automotive solutions at one go: Xiaolong 820A, Xiaolong 602A, Xiaolong X12 LTE modem, Xiaolong X5 LTE modem, Qualcomm VIVE 802.11ac technology, etc.

According to Qualcomm's introduction, the QCA65x4 Wi-Fi chipset is combined with X12 and X5 modems to support Wi-Fi 802.11ac hotspots and V2V (Vehicles and Vehicles) through a seamless combination of Wi-Fi and dedicated short-range communications (DSRC). Consumer characteristics of safety applications such as V2I (Vehicles and Infrastructure). In addition, Qualcomm also demonstrated the Opteron 602A processor that has been selected by the 2017 Audi models. Released at CES 2014, the product is Qualcomm’s first automotive-grade infotainment chipset that meets the automotive industry standards and provides connectivity, infotainment, navigation, voice quality and control features in the car.

"Future smart cars will have more and more features, support 3G/4G connectivity, in-vehicle communications (Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, AllJoyn, Miracast), infotainment systems, multi-screen multimedia, and through an integrated automotive solutions platform. Enhanced voice and application support. Qualcomm integrates these functions into a highly integrated component that not only reduces the cost of the automotive industry, but also provides consumers with a completely new user experience, said Yan Chenxi, vice president of product marketing at Qualcomm.

ADAS drives high-definition graphics processing needs

The Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS) can be understood as an electronic system that assists the driver in driving a car. It contains a human-computer interface that can increase the safety of the vehicle's road travel. As the world's automotive safety standards, the increasing level of automotive electronics and people's growing demand for driving safety, ADAS systems with active safety technology have shown rapid development momentum. Vehicle radar can accurately provide relevant data on the vehicle's driving environment. The 360-degree viewing system can provide road-time information on the road immediately. It is also a key product of the ADAS system in the future. This has also led to a huge increase in market demand for high-resolution display chips and high-accuracy sensor chips.

NXP introduced the single-chip 77GHz high-resolution RFCMOS IC radar chip with the smallest size (7.5×7.5mm) at this CES. According to NXP, the ultra-small size of this car radar chip allows it to be virtually invisible anywhere in the car, and its power consumption is 40% lower than that of a conventional radar chip product, providing a very good design and installation for automotive sensors. Great convenience.

According to IHS Research, a market research institute, with the wide application of ADAS systems, the average annual growth rate of the automotive radar sensor market will reach 23% in the next few years, and it is expected that the total market demand will reach 50 million by 2021. NXP has already delivered working prototypes of this product to some key automakers. Engineers from Google have begun testing the chip in its driverless car project.

STMicroelectronics recently introduced a new generation of automotive vision processors. "EyeQ series adopts ST 28nm FD-SOI technology to design, can detect more objects, improve detection accuracy, and realize more functions needed for highway autopilot, such as free space estimation, pavement contour reconstruction, etc., monitoring environmental conditions (fog , ice and rain and safety impacts, detailed understanding of highway conditions, support for automatic suspension and steering adjustment, and high automation,” said Marc Guedj, Strategic Market Manager, Automotive Products Division, Greater China and South Asia, STMicroelectronics. STMicroelectronics has been cooperating in the development of advanced safe driving technology since 2005 and has previously introduced three generations of visual processors.

V2X into a new highlight of car networking

The V2X technology with the main function of "car to the outside world" information exchange is a new bright spot for the car networking. It is a new application that promotes the formation of automotive networks after infotainment. If the initial application of the car networking is mainly focused on security, security, car amplifiers, and information entertainment, then as people pay more attention to driving safety, the future car will quickly form communication with various objects and assist people in safe driving. It will be rapidly developed and become a new driving force for the development of in-vehicle networks.

The core of V2X technology is the V2X chipset. In this regard, NXP and STMicroelectronics have made long-term arrangements. NXP also partnered with automotive component supplier Delphi to promote volume production of the V2X chipset. NXP provides the Roadlink chip that enables V2X communications to Delphi Automotive, and Delphi promotes it through a partnership with leading global car manufacturers.

STMicroelectronics and Autotalks will jointly develop the V2X chipset, complementing STMicroelectronics' automotive R&D experience, proprietary design system knowledge and capacity-quality control capabilities, and complementing Autotalks' proprietary system technology on V2X. The second-generation chipset V2X chipset will be completed in large-scale deployment by 2017.

At present, Qualcomm also began to pay attention to the market in this area. The Qualcomm VIVE 802.11ac technology on display at CES hopes to support Wi-Fi 802.11ac hotspots by seamlessly combining Wi-Fi and dedicated short-range communications (DSRC) to enable, for example, V2V (vehicle and vehicle) and V2I (vehicle and infrastructure Facilities) and other safety applications.

Introduce intelligence into power technology

With the development of the automotive industry and the rise of people’s awareness of environmental protection, the green power for energy conservation has become the mainstream of automobile development and a hot spot for consumers. Introducing intelligence into power technologies and improving energy efficiency in an intelligent manner is the future development trend.

Recently, STMicroelectronics has introduced a new series of high-voltage N-channel power MOSFETs for the automotive market. The new product has passed AEC-Q101 automotive test certification and uses ST's most advanced MDmeshTM DM2 superjunction manufacturing technology with built-in fast recovery diodes. The breakdown voltage range is from 400V to 650V, and D2PAK, TO-220 and TO-247 are available. Kind of package. The new 400V and 500V products are the first AEC-Q101-certified power MOSFETs in the market, while the 600V and 650V products have higher performance than existing competitive products. The full range of products is designed for automotive applications, integrating fast body diodes internally, restoring commutation behavior with higher softness factor and back-to-back gate-source zener diode protection , is ideal for full-bridge zero-voltage switch topologies.