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Consumer chips in the car? Experts demand adequate design processes

Consumer chips in the car? Experts demand adequate design processes

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By eeNews Europe



The group which includes among others Analog Devices, Freescale, Infineon, NXP, Bosch and STMicroelectronics, sees the necessity to increase the risk consciousness for cases in which parts developed for broader markets are designed into car-based applications. "The automotive value chain needs a new, future-oriented and reliable cooperation basis", the paper states.

The authors admit that the trend to use parts foreign to automotive design methodologies in automotive applications is "unavoidable" – for a number of reasons. The most pronounced is certainly the divergence in the innovation speeds between both worlds: During the time required to design one vehicle generation – along with the associated electronics – the consumer world sees at least three or four chip generations. With less than 10% of the total chip consumption, the automotive industry as a market is too small to justify the high and rising development costs for leading-edge SoCs and high-performance microprocessors. The dilemma for the carmakers is that their customers increasingly demand the latest in functionality and computing performance, but as the paper states, some of the top performance chip products "are based on semiconductor and manufacturing technologies that can not make compatible to the requirements of the automotive industry" in terms of reliability, longevity and failsafe performance. To achieve comparable reliability, these shortcomings have to be compensated at the application level – which means that operational parameters such as cooling, operation voltage, and clock frequencies have to be adapted to the automotive requirements. This, in turn, requires a higher degree of transparency as to the characteristics of these semiconductors. The authors of the paper compiled a list of 60 parameters that determine for performance, reliability and resilience of the chips; these parameters range from the gate oxide used to operation temperature and clock frequency. "We want the OEMs to understand these connections" a spokesperson of the chipmaker group told eeNews Europe. To ensure a comparable reliability with consumer devices as with automotive-qualified parts, the group calls for a "fundamental departure in the development process – away from the top-down approach towards a communication flow and cooperation between all participants of the automotive value chain."

For the OEMs, securing the reliability they usually expect might only be possible if they are ready to accept certain compromises. For instance, they will have to waive the maximum performance these chips are designed for. "Either maximum performance or reliability – you cannot have both" a spokesperson said.

Upon request by eeNews Europe, carmaker Daimler denied that it uses consumer hardware in its series vehicles. "We use processors from the consumer markets in our advance design process and in prototypes", a spokesperson explained. "But to bring them into series production they first have to undergo the qualification and certification process".

A process, which however can for last several years. Until a component is qualified for automotive use, it might have been replaced by a successor. And the innovation speed is increasing, Daimer admits.

The paper can be downloaded here (English language version)

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