Automotive Electronics

Cypress Semiconductor believes high-end electronics tech should be more readily available in affordable cars and it has moved its Traveo microcontrollers to a 40nm process technology  which it says will make them more cost-effective for instrument clusters and body electronics. The MCUs have as standard up to 4Mbyte of high-density embedded flash, stepper motor control, TFT display control, advanced sound output capabilities ...

The UK government has confirmed its commitment to zero emission cars by saying  that all passenger vehicles sales must be for zero emission vehicles by 2050. This was the ambitious target agreed at the International Climate Conference in Paris before Christmas. The UK has also signed up to the Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) Alliance, for promoting the wider international uptake of ultra-low emission vehicles. Members include ...

Renesas Electronics is working with German safety-critical system firm TTTech Computertechnik to develop an electronic control unit (ECU) development platform for driver assistance systems (ADAS). These automotive systems rely on data from sensors throughout the vehicle to function. The aim of the collaboration is to create a control module which runs software that is compatible with various sensors from different suppliers. The software needs ...

Toshiba has launched 15nm embedded NAND flash for automotive infotainment systems and industrial applications. The technology supports an operating temperature range of -40oC to 85oC and meets AEC-Q100 specifications as well as adhering to PPAP requirements. They come in an 11.5mm x 13mm package that is compliant with the latest JEDEC eMMC standard. Densities range from 8GB to 64GB. Each ...

Cypress Semiconductor has introduced a 64Mbit NOR flash memory device with its highest read bandwidth and fastest program time for a memory chip qualified for automotive designs. The FS-S NOR flash device has a Quad SPI interface and has an 80MHz Double Data Rate (DDR) mode to deliver read bandwidth of 80Mbyte/s. The device provides a 0.475-ms program time per ...

The auto chip market grew 5.7% this year to $29.6 billion and will grow 3.7% next year, according to Reportlinker. 2016 growth will stall due to global deflation resulting in a depreciation of the Japanese yen and the euro against the dollar second, and because China, the world’s largest auto market, is very likely to go into decline. China’s auto market may slide ...

Toshiba is sampling a general purpose system power IC with multiple outputs and functional safety circuits for automotive applications. It is scheduled for production in October 2017. It comes  in an HTSSOP48-P-300-0.50 package measuring 6.1mm by 12.5mm x 1.0mm. Safety-critical automotive systems, such as electric power steering (EPS) and braking, are required to meet the requirements of ASIL-D, the highest ...

Car makers are looking to make touch control a standard feature in many of their vehicles. This is the expectation of California-based chip firm Synaptics, which supplies touch controllers to many of the world’s smartphone companies. According to Dr Huibert Verhoeven, v-p of the automotive business at Synaptics, at first there was resistance form many car makers for adding touch ...

Ginsbury is selling two small-format TFT display modules from Japanese display manufacturer Kyocera. The addition of a 4.2-inch and a 5.0-inch display module expands the range of TFT display modules available from Kyocera. The design of the new display modules is based on automotive specification requirements and boasts an extended operating temperature range of -30°C to +85°C and a storage ...

The growing importance of the internet for providing data services and data analytics is creating challenges for automotive suppliers, which will be very familiar to IT firms, writes Andrew Macleod In the past market needs for consumer electronics, computer networks, and the automotive industry were very separate, each with their own design cycles and security requirements. Convergence of these sectors ...