Renesas benefits from Japan’s edge in electromobility
With about 40% of the company’s total revenue accounting for automotive-related products, the global car industry is of the utmost importance for Renesas. With such a standing in the automotive market, the Japan-based chipmaker as well as its European subsidiary have deep insights into the technology trends that define future product generations. In line with the general trend in the automotive industry, Renesas is focusing on three major technology fields – autonomous driving, vehicle connectivity and electromobility. “Autonomous driving is currently driven by stimuli from the development of electromobility”, Axmacher observed.
electromobility”: Jürgen Axmacher, Renesas Europe
This view might have something to do with Renesas being of Japanese origin and having its strongest market position in that country, where the world’s largest carmaker, Toyota, is one of Renesas’ electromobility customers. Generally spoken, electric vehicles are more popular in Japan than in Europe and North America, Axmacher says. The reason: The Japanese society is rather urban-centric and therefore the driving range is not such a paramount issue than elsewhere. Renesas’ contribution to electromobility includes motor control chips. Here, the company currently holds a market share of 10%, but intends to crank this figure up to 30% by 2025. “The Intersil acquisition will greatly contribute to this increase”, Axmacher said.
Other major topic for Renesas developers are smart infrastructures and security. “These items will be very, very important when automated driving will gain traction”, Axmacher predicted. Renesas’ approach is relying on separating the functional units in the car, like infotainment and control. “These worlds need to be separated, even if they are implemented on the same chip”, Axmacher explained. To keep them separated, Renesas is betting on encryption engines implemented in hardware.
Once automated driving will fall into place, software updates over the air will be a very essential ingredient, because the possibility to eliminate flaws in the installed software will be crucial for safety reasons. While Renesas has no series product in this segment yet, development is underway. Nevertheless, Renesas hardware already supports the Security Hardware Extension (SHE). One of the SHE supporters is car manufacturer Audi with whom Renesas maintains a strategic partnership. Nevertheless, the chipmaker also supports the more advanced Hardware Security Module (HSM) developed in the EVITA project with the participation of, among others, Fraunhofer SIT research center and BMW. While products for both approaches are already available, “HSM is better suited to meet future requirements”, Axmacher said.
Related articles:
Renesas agrees to pay $3.2 billion for Intersil
Escrypt, Renesas jointly develop secure automotive platform
Motor control circuit for automotive MCUs targets next-gen EVs
Renesas shifts automotive centre of gravity to Europe
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