In connected car news are LG, Renesas, Microchip, Veniam, TomTom, STMicroelectronics, Duck-il, Immersion & Cummins.
LG 5G Telematics for European Automaker
LG Electronics continues to raise the ante in the automotive connectivity market with recent deals to supply 5G telematics solutions to a premium European automaker. Already an established player in telematics, a field that combines several disciplines including telecommunications and vehicle parts technologies, LG’s Vehicle component Solutions Company has proven that it has the technological knowhow and experience to lead the auto industry in the 5G era.
According to market research firm Strategy Analytics, by 2026 approximately 67 million new vehicles worldwide will be equipped with telematics capabilities. Telematics 5G communications modules, introduced only last year, are expected to account for more than 25 percent of the total vehicle telematics market by 2026. With its highly-evolved and wide-ranging core technologies, LG has already secured a competitive advantage in 5G standards, accounting for about 10 percent of global 5G standard patent approvals and ranked second globally.
From vehicle-to-everything (V2X) systems to integrated hardware and software packages and in-vehicle communications gateways, LG’s cutting-edge 5G telematics innovations deliver a new level of on-road connectivity and safety. An essential component in autonomous vehicles, V2X technologies enable vehicles to communicate in real-time with other vehicles, nearby pedestrians and infrastructure to create a safer environment for all.
Fast approaching the threshold for Society of Autonomous Engineers’ Level 4 in which autonomous vehicles no longer require human interaction for operation, LG’s 5G-V2X technology delivers more consistent vehicle data transmission speeds. Faster, more stable communications means vehicles can recognize and respond to a variety of road conditions and driving situations instantaneously while the high-precision positioning technology, known as Advanced Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), can pinpoint a vehicle’s exact location to within 40 centimeters even when traveling at high speeds.
Utilizing Dual SIM Dual Active (DSDA) technology, LG’s solutions simultaneously support connected car and autonomous driving functionalities, enabling vehicle occupants to enjoy entertainment services, convenient functions and enhanced safety. The 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Release 16* 5G module boasts significantly improved performance and more reliable connections. What’s more, the smart, flat antenna allows automakers to maintain the aerodynamic lines of their designs which would be impossible with traditional “shark fin” antennas.
“Thanks to our experience and expertise in vehicle telematics, LG has been successful in winning a number of new contracts with established global automakers,” said Eun Seok-hyun, president of the LG Vehicle component Solutions Company. “With solutions that are extremely easy to implement in various vehicle models thanks to our embedded modular design, LG’s telematics hardware and software systems offer an unmatched level of flexibility for manufacturers and diverse services for end-users. A trusted partner to automakers worldwide, LG is helping to create a safer, better future on the world’s roads with its growing portfolio of advanced mobility innovations.”
Renesas BLE
Renesas Electronics Corporation (TSE:6723), a premier supplier of advanced semiconductor solutions, today announced the development of two 2.4 GHz RF transceiver technologies that support the Bluetooth® Low Energy (LE) low-power, near-field communication standard. The new technologies also achieve a smaller mounting area and better power efficiency. Renesas presented these technologies at International Solid-State Circuits Conference 2022 (ISSCC 2022), held between February 20 and 24 in San Francisco.
In addition to being compact, low cost, and power efficient, IoT devices must provide flexible support for Bluetooth LE regardless of their implementation format. Renesas has developed two new technologies to address these requirements: 1) a matching circuit technology that covers a wide impedance range and enables the IC to match a variety of antenna and board impedances without an external impedance-matching circuit; 2) a signal correction technology for locally generated reference signals that uses a small circuit to self correct inconsistencies in the circuit elements and variations in surrounding conditions without calibration.
Renesas has verified the effectiveness of these technologies on a Bluetooth LE RF transceiver circuit prototype built with a 22-nm CMOS process. With these new technologies, Renesas reduced the circuit area including the power supply to 0.84 mm2, the world’s smallest for a device of this type. This was achieved by modifying the receiver architecture to reduce the number of inductors and making enhancements such as a low-current baseband amplifier with a small mounting area and a highly efficient class-D amplifier. They offer best-in-class power efficiency, with power consumption of 3.6 mW and 4.1 mW during reception and transmission respectively. These advances enable smaller size, reduced board cost, and lower power consumption, while simplifying the board design process.
The benefits of the new RF transceiver technologies are:
1. Matching Circuit Technology Covering Wide Impedance Range (On-chip Antenna Impedance Tuner, AIT)
The integrated impedance-matching circuit technology presented by Renesas at ISSCC 2015 enabled compact and low-cost Bluetooth LE products that required no external inductors or capacitors for switching between reception and transmission or impedance matching. However, depending on the type of antenna or board design considerations, the impedance did not necessarily reach 50 Ω and an external matching circuit was still needed. In addition, when using the earlier technology and adding a matching circuit with impedance-changing functionality, issues involving increased signal loss and inability to achieve a sufficient range of variation could still arise.
To address these issues, Renesas has developed a new variable impedance-matching circuit technology that consists of two inductors and four variable capacitors. The transmitter-side inductor and receiver-side inductor used in the matching circuit are configured in a concentric arrangement, and their mutual induction is employed to reduce signal loss and cut the effective parasitic capacitance. This both expands the variable impedance range and substantially shrinks the circuit area. A voltage standing wave ratio (VSWR), which indicates impedance mismatches, equivalent to maximum 6.8 and a variable impedance range of approximately 25 to 300 Ω have been confirmed.
2. Reference Signal Self-Correction Circuit Technology Eliminating Need for Calibration Circuit (Self-IQ-Phase Correction, SIQC)
A reference signal (locally generated signal) of roughly the same frequency as that of the wireless radio signals received via the antenna is generated internally by the RF transceiver. The signal is used to convert gigahertz-band wireless signals to low-frequency baseband signals. The accuracy of the reference signal can be degraded by factors such as inconsistencies in the circuit elements or variations in the temperature or supply voltage. In the past, the compensation technology for phase and amplitude deviations with a calibration circuit was used to accurately generate the reference signal. This led to problems, however, because integrating such a calibration circuit required a larger chip area, higher power consumption, and increased test cost.
Renesas resolved these issues by developing a new self-IQ-phase correction circuit technology that uses reference signals of four different phases to correct each other by allowing the phase differences to cancel each other out. This self-correction circuit is much smaller and can be implemented at approximately one-twelfth the size of a conventional calibration circuit. The image signal rejection ratio, crucial to reception performance, averages 39 dB, which meets the Bluetooth standard with a comfortable margin to spare.
These technologies are applicable to different types of RF transceivers in addition to Bluetooth LE, and Renesas is currently working on practical applications for these technologies.
Microchip’s Gen4 PCIe
High-speed, low-latency connectivity solutions for distributed, heterogenous compute systems are a fundamental element in next-generation autonomous driving applications. Microchip Technology Inc. is announcing the market’s first Gen 4 automotive-qualified PCIe® switches. These Switchtec™ PFX, PSX and PAX switch solutions provide cutting-edge compute interconnect capabilities for Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS).
“Our automotive-qualified portfolio of Switchtec Gen 4 switches provides the lowest latency and high bandwidth required to link the CPU and accelerator building blocks used in ADAS applications,” says Krishna Mallampati, associate director of marketing and applications for Microchip’s data center solutions business unit. “We are delighted to see the culmination of several years of collaboration with key technology partners and to bring these solutions to market.”
Switchtec Gen 4 PCIe switches provide the high-speed interconnect that supports distributed, real-time, safety-critical data processing in ADAS architectures. PCIe is emerging as the preferred compute interconnect solution for the automotive industry for the same reasons it has become pervasive in the data center market. It provides ultra-low latency and low-power bandwidth scalability to CPUs and specialized accelerator devices.
“The qualification of Microchip’s solutions to meet the stringent needs of the automotive market is a significant milestone, and one NVIDIA closely collaborated on,” said Michael Truog, senior director of Automotive Platform Architecture at NVIDIA. “Microchip’s automotive PCIe switches deliver flexibility and advanced programmability, enabling high-speed SoC and GPU connectivity within our NVIDIA DRIVE platform.”
Microchip’s ChipLink diagnostic Graphical User Interface (GUI) provides extensive debug, diagnostics, configuration and forensics tools for rapid deployment.
Veniam & TomTom
Veniam, the market leader in intelligent networking for connected vehicles, is combining its technology with TomTom, the geolocation technology specialist and creator of TomTom IndiGO, to deliver best-in-class connectivity for onboard applications and car manufacturers around the world.
Veniam’s software and cloud services ensure that connected vehicles can make the most out of all available networks such as 4G/5G, Wi-Fi, and V2X. This means more and better telemetry data, infotainment content and/or over-the-air software updates at 60% lower cost per GB.
TomTom IndiGO, the world’s first and only open digital cockpit software, offers carmakers, system integrators, software development companies, and content providers, an open and secure environment to develop software and apps, giving carmakers choice, while delivering a delightful and safe in-vehicle experience. The platform expertly unifies all in-vehicle displays through a common user interface that gives passenger and driver access to climate control, the audio system, extensive vehicle systems settings, and the latest apps and services.
STMicroelectronics New Microcontrollers
STMicroelectronics, a global semiconductor leader serving customers across the spectrum of electronics applications, has unveiled new automotive microcontrollers (MCUs) optimized for electric vehicles and centralized (domain and zonal) electronic architectures. They enable EVs to become more affordable, drive further, and charge faster.
In current EVs, high-efficiency SiC-based (silicon carbide) power modules enable the greatest driving range and faster charging. Until now, they have required dedicated high-speed signal processors to control the advanced SiC power semiconductors. ST’s Stellar E MCUs, designed for the next generation of software-defined EVs, integrate high-speed control-loop processing on-chip. Now one MCU can control the entire module. This simplifies the module design, saves costs, and eases compliance with automotive safety and security standards.
The new MCUs extend ST’s Arm®-based Stellar family and are designed from the ground up with the car as a platform in mind. As a powerful, centralized domain and zone controller, the family simplifies automotive electrical architectures for increased power, flexibility, and safety. Currently, the MCUs family includes Stellar P series for integration and vehicle control and the Stellar G series for body applications. The Stellar family architecture integrates multiple Arm Cortex cores that deliver high performance with the opportunity for lock-step redundancy and support real-time hardware virtualization. All Stellar devices are designed for software upgradeability through secure over-the-air (OTA) updates.
“Our Stellar MCUs enable state-of-the-art electrification while ensuring efficient energy management and software-defined flexibility for vehicle lifecycle management,” said Luca Rodeschini, Automotive and Discrete Group Vice President, Strategic Business Development and Automotive Processing and RF General Manager, STMicroelectronics. “With the new Stellar E devices, this platform now enables a new value chain for EVs. Sensing the environment, controlling vehicle dynamics, enhancing power-conversion efficiency, and safely managing high-current power stages, are effectively handled in a single component. The ability to update software securely over the air lets manufacturers refine their control strategies for extra driving range, performance, and power efficiency.”
The first product in the Stellar E series, the Stellar SR5E1 optimized for EV on-board chargers (OBC) and general DC/DC converters, is now sampling to lead customers. Full production will begin in 2023.
Duck-il Immersion
Immersion Corporation (NASDAQ: IMMR), the leading licensor of haptic technologies, announced it has signed a license agreement with Duck-il, a Korea-based automotive supplier, for use of its technology in automotive interfaces.
“Immersion technology is essential to high-definition tactile user experiences in the car,” said Nobumitsu Shimada, VP, APAC, Immersion. “We’re excited to be working with Duck-il on further adoption of our technology in the market.”
“Haptics is becoming pivotal to modern automotive interface designs,” said Mr. Kim, Lead Development Engineer, Duck-il. “Our agreement with Immersion enables our team to utilize its leading technology to deliver the highest quality solutions to our customers.”
Immersion’s innovative touch feedback technology enhances in-vehicle interfaces and applications. Haptics is increasingly being designed into automotive applications as more vehicles incorporate high-definition tactile effects to improve the user experience of touch-based interfaces.
Cummins Buys Meritor
-Cummins Inc. (NYSE: CMI) and Meritor, Inc. (NYSE: MTOR) announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Cummins will acquire Meritor, a global leader of drivetrain, mobility, braking, aftermarket and electric powertrain solutions for commercial vehicle and industrial markets. Under the terms of the agreement, Cummins will pay $36.50 in cash per Meritor share, for a total transaction value of approximately $3.7 billion, including assumed debt and net of acquired cash.