Automotive Electronics

Vishay is aiming at automotive and telecom power with fast switching soft-recovery (25ns recovery) FRED Pt rectifiers. AEC-Q101-qualified and designed for low leakage and low forward voltage drop (0.93V), the components are intended for dc-dc converters in engine control units (ECUs), anti-lock braking systems (ABS), LED lighting and dc-dc bricks. Current is up to 3A and the package, called SlimSMA, is ...

Cars connected to the IoT will avoid traffic jams and be safer to drive, and semiconductor suppliers are starting to offer the products to make this happen, writes Steven Keeping. The internet of things (IoT) differs from the traditional Internet by replacing the main source of data input (humans) with computers, machines and sensors. Such a development ensures the physical ...

Second-hand electric car batteries are to be used for static energy storage following a deal between Nissan and Californian commercial energy storage firm Green Charge Networks. Nissan, according to Green Charge, has conducted non-vehicle research using batteries from its Leaf car in Japan, the US and Europe through 4R Energy, its joint-venture with Sumitomo – over 178,000 Leafs have been sold. ...

Cars may one day park themselves if a development project by Bosch, Daimler and car2go is successful. The automated parking process defined by the project uses will require the installation of a car park infrastructure network which will be used by a vehicle control unit developed from Bosch in conjunction with on-board sensors from Mercedes-Benz. The scheme will incorporate car-sharing ...

Microsemi says it has got auto qualification, AEC-Q100 grade 2, for its ARM-based, flash FPGAs and these will be on the market next month. The ICs offer single event upset (SEU) immunity which gives protection from neutron-induced firm errors, achieving zero defect rate. Microsemi targets them at advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), vehicle-to-vehicle/vehicle-to-everything (V2V/V2X) communication and electric/hybrid engine control units. ...

Three European Commission-backed electric car R&D initiatives kick off today – 3Ccar, OSEM-EV and SilverStream. Infineon leads all three. Total funding is Euros 67 million betrween now and 2018.. 70 partners with a total of 120 researchers from 15 countries, and representatives of ECSEL Joint Undertaking, the EU, the EC, and the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research will ...

Problem plastics such as polyethylene, polycarbonate and acetal can be bonded in automotive electronics applications by a silicone adhesive from Dow Corning. Called EA-7100, it also works on the usual metals, ceramics, glass and laminates. “Depending on application, the material can often bond to these substrates without requiring pre-treatment or extensive cleaning,” said the firm. “This property, combined with the material’s ...

Socionext, the SoC company formed by Fujitsu and Panasonic, is shipping its MB86R91 APIX Companion Chip for the growing number of in-car displays.

Symtavision, the timing design and verification specialist, has launched SymTA/S 3.7for automotive Ethernet and multicore systems. 

Advanced driver-assist systems (ADAS) will have a $102bn (£66bn) ‘opportunity’ by 2030, up from $2.4bn today, as carmakers add automation features, according to Lux Research.