“The key driver for the next three years will be emission”

ECN Asia spoke to C. S. Chua, Director, Automotive Marketing, Infineon Technologies Asia Pacific Pte Ltd, on the sidelines of SAE India Mobility Conference in New Delhi recently. Excerpts:

What are the design trends in automotive electronics?

Automotive electronics has three sub-categories: car engine, safety, and body. In the last decade when Euro 2 and Euro 3 standards were prevalent, engines used 16-bit microcontroller. With Euro 4 coming in 2005, 32-bit microcontrollers came to be used. When transition is made to Euro 5 toward the end of this decade, 32-bit should be sufficient for emission but speed requirement will be higher. 32-bit will get faster by clock speed. We shall move toward dual-core 32-bit. The maximum clock speed for 32-bit microprocessors today is 180MHz. This is likely to be pushed beyond 200MHz. For safety, the trend is toward dual core chips that provides enough redundancy. Safety Integrity Level (SIL) is not used today in the automotive industry; however, it will come up in 2010.

Software design will play a major role in enabling SIL. For instance, in software you will have solutions for what is to be done when say the brake fails. The automobile body has the lowest requirement in terms of reliability, and this trend will continue. Nevertheless, semiconductor solutions for automotive body and convenience applications have to be designed to meet the rigorous requirements of today’s comfort challenges, which include light control, heating and ventilation, remote keyless entry, door control, air conditioning, and power seat. Yet another trend is the integration of power components. You don’t want to have a large number of discrete devices; you want them to be integrated into one. The advantages of designing a system by using power devices with SMD are less board space, reduced power consumption, reduced wire weight, minimal or no heat sinks, and increased reliability through intelligent failure management.

Do you find differences in automotive trends in various geographical regions from the perspective of the designer?

In general, the focus in automotive design is on energy efficiency, communications, and security. However, different regions have different perceptions of these aspects. For instance, in Europe 1 part per million (ppm) failure is hardly acceptable; in China, 100 ppm is quite normal.

Safety is the largest growth segment in all regions. Most regions have their own perception of priority areas. While Japan is leading in hybrid automobile and infotainment, it does not seem to be going fast in high performance.

In powertrain, Europe is leading and the best designers are based in Europe. Koreans are not going after innovation, but they position themselves as average car makers with best prices.

Tatas have recently introduced in India a car said to be the cheapest in the world at $2,500. Can this car meet the minimum international requirements of emission, pollution, safety, etc.?

Chua: It is too early to comment on the performance of this car. All cars are supposed to meet such minimum requirements. It is a great achievement of Indian designers to this car.

What is the key automotive design activity in the foreseeable future?

The key driver for the next three years will be emission.

How does Infineon position itself in the automotive segment?

We position ourselves as a one-stop automotive semiconductor supplier. We can provide designers with over 95 percent of their semiconductor needs.

What kind of automotive design work is Infineon doing in Asia?

In Singapore, where we have some 80 engineers, we design and develop microcontrollers for automotive applications. We are currently working on 32-bit microcontrollers. Two years ago we started R&D on sensors. Demands on sensors are rapidly increasing. While they are getting smaller, cheaper, and more reliable, they have to offer more functionalities.

Infineon has pioneered the latest developments in sensors, and provides a broad range of sensor solutions to meet the exacting needs of the automotive industry today. In Bangalore we have over 600 engineers of whom 60 percent work on software across various segments. The software for automotive microcontrollers is developed here.