Connected Car News: Bosch, Parasoft, onsemi, ZEEKR, Ansys, TSMC, GM, onsemi, Infinenon & Antolin

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In connected car news are Bosch, Parasoft, onsemi, ZEEKR, Ansys, TSMC, GM, onsemi, Infinenon, Biometric Vox Vehicle Access System with Antolin

Bosch Buys TSI Semi

Bosch is expanding its semiconductor business with silicon carbide chips. The technology company plans to acquire assets of the U.S. chipmaker TSI Semiconductors, based in Roseville, California. With a workforce of 250, the company is a foundry for application-specific integrated circuits, or ASICs. Currently, it mainly develops and produces large volumes of chips on 200-millimeter silicon wafers for applications in the mobility, telecommunications, energy, and life sciences industries. Over the next years, Bosch intends to invest more than 1.5 billion USD in the Roseville site and convert the TSI Semiconductors manufacturing facilities to state-of-the-art processes. Starting in 2026, the first chips will be produced on 200-millimeter wafers based on the innovative material silicon carbide (SiC).

In this way, Bosch is systematically reinforcing its semiconductor business, and will have significantly extended its global portfolio of SiC chips by the end of 2030. Above all, the global boom and ramp-up of electromobility are resulting in huge demand for such special semiconductors. The full scope of the planned investment will be heavily dependent on federal funding opportunities available via the CHIPS and Science Act as well as economic development opportunities within the State of California. Bosch and TSI Semiconductors have reached an agreement to not to disclose any financial details of the transaction, which is subject to regulatory approval.

Parasoft Partners with TASKING

Parasoft, a global leader in embedded software testing solutions, has announced a partnership with TASKING, an industry leader in automotive embedded software development tools. The partnership offers an integrated software development and testing solution for automotive applications with a CI/CD workflow that ensures safe, secure, and reliable code through every step of the SDLC. Teams developing embedded software for automotive systems will benefit by reducing costs and increasing efficiency.

By aligning the extensive knowledge of Parasoft and TASKING, the collaboration will provide a comprehensive solution for the automotive industry. The integration will expedite the delivery of software in automotive electronic control units making them safe, secure, and reliable for combustion engine vehicles, modern electronic vehicles (EVs), future software-defined vehicles (SwDVs), and more.

TASKING’s complete integrated development environment offers support for:

  • Microprocessors and microcontrollers with compilers
  • Debuggers
  • Embedded internet
  • RTOS

Parasoft’s continuous code quality and functional safety compliance solutions unify and automate static code analysis and unit testing and allow for testing on target hardware, host, or virtual environments. The partnership with TASKING ensures code compliance with functional safety and security standards such as ISO 26262 and ISO 21434. The solutions have been TÜV-certified for use on safety-critical systems in software development.

“With the development of automotive embedded software, ensuring safe, repeatable, and reliable operation is paramount. This partnership improves the efficiency of our customers workflows by combining the power and flexibility of TASKING’s safety and security compliant toolsets with Parasoft’s automated static and dynamic software analysis solutions,” said Roger Smith, Technical Marketing Manager at TASKING.

“I’m very honored that Parasoft and TASKING have partnered in delivering the best tool choice for the development and testing of software in automotive. You’ll shorten development time and ensure safe and secure code by integrating our combined solutions into your modern DevOps development ecosystem,” said Ricardo Camacho, Director of Regulatory Safety and Security Compliance at Parasoft.

Furthermore, Parasoft and TASKING (including iSYSTEM) have joined forces with industry leaders, Infineon, Elektrobit, MathWorks, and Synopsys to deliver best practices for accelerating multi-core automotive application development and testing at the Automotive Toolchain Symposium (ATS) event on May 4, 2023.

onsemi Supplies ZEEKR

onsemi , a leader in intelligent power and sensing technologies, and premium electric mobility brand ZEEKR announced a long-term supply agreement (LTSA) between the two companies. onsemi will provide its EliteSiC silicon carbide (SiC) power devices to increase the powertrain efficiency of ZEEKR’s smart electric vehicles (EVs), resulting in improved performance, faster charging speeds and extended driving range.

To support its expanding portfolio of high-performance EVs, ZEEKR will adopt onsemi EliteSiC MOSFET, 1200V, M3E with enhanced electrical and mechanical performance and reliability. These power devices deliver improved power and thermal efficiency, which reduces the size and weight of the traction inverter and enhances the range of the automaker’s EVs.

“With cutting-edge technologies such as advanced SiC, ZEEKR will be able to offer electric vehicles with improved performance and even lower carbon emissions,” said Andy An, CEO of ZEEKR Intelligent Technology. “As a brand committed to sustainability, ZEEKR will continue to explore different ways to accelerate the transition towards new energy vehicles.”

The new LTSA will enable both companies to build a stronger supply chain relationship to support ZEEKR’s growth over the next decade.

“A reliable supply chain is critical to business success and, after significant investments in our SiC end-to-end supply chain, onsemi can offer this strategic value to customers,” said Hassane El-Khoury, president and CEO, onsemi. “This agreement will help our continued ramp of SiC operations, enabling us to offer industry-leading power devices that help our customers deploy the most efficient and highest performing EVs on the market.”

ZEEKR is a premium electric mobility brand built to address the global demand for premium EVs. Utilizing Geely’s advanced Sustainable Experience Architecture (SEA), ZEEKR develops in-house battery technologies, battery management systems, electric motor technologies and electric vehicle supply chain support.

Ansys & TSMC Together Again

Ansys (NASDAQ: ANSS) and TSMC continue their long-standing technology collaboration to announce the certification of Ansys’ power integrity software for TSMC’s N2 process technology. The TSMC N2 process, which adopts nanosheet transistor structure, represents a major advancement in semiconductor technology with significant speed and power advantages for high performance computing (HPC), mobile chips, and 3D-IC chiplets. Both Ansys RedHawk-SC and Ansys Totem are certified for power integrity signoff on N2, including the effects of self-heat on long-term reliability of wires and transistors. This latest collaboration builds on the recent certification of the Ansys platform for TSMC’s N4 and N3E FinFLEX processes.

“TSMC works closely with our Open Innovation Platform® (OIP) ecosystem partners to help our mutual customers achieve the best design results with the full stack of design solutions on TSMC’s most advanced N2 process,” said Dan Kochpatcharin, head of the Design Infrastructure Management Division at TSMC. “Our latest collaboration with Ansys RedHawk-SC and Totem analysis tools allows our customers to benefit from the significant power and performance improvements of our N2 technology while ensuring predictively accurate power and thermal signoff for the long-term reliability of their designs.”

As technology scaling continues, the self-heating effect from switching devices and current conduction in interconnects can affect circuit reliability. Ansys and TSMC have collaborated to correctly model this with a heatsink-aware flow that increases thermal predictive accuracy by taking into consideration the heat conduction to neighboring wires that may cool a local hot spot. These calculations allow designers to assess margins with predictive accuracy and increase circuit performance by avoiding wasteful over-design.

“Ansys has developed a comprehensive thermal management flow for the entire semiconductor to system design flow,” said John Lee, vice president and general manager of the electronics, semiconductor, and optics business unit at Ansys. “Our ongoing collaboration with TSMC extends our multiphysics analysis to the latest, most advanced process technologies where we have jointly developed novel solutions to manage heat and thermal dissipation in high-speed applications.”

GM Joins Eclipse Foundation

General Motors announced that it is joining the Eclipse Foundation, one of the world’s largest open source software foundations. It has also contributed “uProtocol” as a starting point for greater standardization, enabling increased software productivity across the automotive industry that can lead to easy-to-use, software-enabled customer experiences. This protocol aims to speed up software development by streamlining the creation of software that is distributed across multiple devices within vehicles as well as across the cloud and mobile.

GM will participate in the Eclipse Foundation’s Software Defined Vehicle (SDV) Working Group, which is focused on accelerating innovation of automotive-grade software stacks using open source and open specifications developed by and for a growing community of engineers and member companies. Collaborators on GM’s Ultifi software platform including Microsoft and Red Hat, as well as multiple other automakers, participate in the group.

“By joining the Eclipse Foundation’s SDV Working Group, we aim to bolster collaboration within the industry to increase software reuse and interoperability across the automotive industry, therefore benefitting customer experiences at scale,” said Frank Ghenassia, executive chief architect of Software Defined Vehicles at General Motors. “By creating an open, shared software-defined vehicle protocol, we hope we can enable software to be easily shared across multiple companies and across smartphones, vehicle computers and cloud services. We hope others join us in this pursuit so customers can enjoy the benefits.”

With software-defined vehicles expected to grow in number and capability in the coming years, the potential exists for a fragmented ecosystem where apps and software for each automaker require custom code, creating walled gardens that lead to more work and less scalability while taking longer to reach customers.

This brought the team to develop uProtocol, a standard with the potential to connect automotive applications and services everywhere — not just in GM products, or even just in vehicles — but to create efficiency across the phones and other devices talking to vehicles as well. Introduced at a recent Eclipse Foundation event in Lisbon, Portugal, uProtocol is not owned or trademarked by GM, but will serve as a call to action for other companies to rally around a set of technologies that can be collaboratively deployed. This is a critical time, as GM is preparing to deploy its Ultifi¹ software platform at scale across its global portfolio of electric and internal combustion vehicles sold through the Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet and GMC brands in the coming years, and an opportunity for all automakers, suppliers and others to align around standards that can benefit developers and consumers alike.

“We are excited that GM is joining the Eclipse Software Defined Vehicle industry collaboration. They have clearly recognized the fundamental shift to collaborative open source software development that is taking place within the automotive market,” said Mike Milinkovich, executive director of the Eclipse Foundation. “Their contributions will help enable faster time-to-market, reduced development costs, new sources of revenue and new service models for the entire industry.”

onsemi Ships 1B to HELLA

onsemi (Nasdaq: ON), a leader in intelligent power and sensing technologies, today announced that the company has shipped its one billionth Inductive Sensor Interface Integrated Circuit (IC) to HELLA, an international automotive supplier operating under the umbrella brand FORVIA. The IC designed by onsemi is being used in HELLA’s Contactless Inductive Position Sensor (CIPOS®) technology for automotive x-by-wire systems. Throughout their 25-year collaboration, the companies developed innovative design methods that reduced the size of both the HELLA module and the onsemi IC to better fit the demanding applications of the module’s form factor.

Infinenon Intros Intor USB-C PD

Infineon Technologies AG introduces the EZ-PD™ CCG7D, a dual-port USB-C power delivery (PD) solution with integrated boost controller for in-car charging applications. The USB-C PD complies with the latest USB Type-C and PD specifications (Ver. 3.1) and is AEC Q-100 qualified. The PD solution is specifically designed for automotive applications that support Display Port (DP) in alternate mode. The solution was implemented in collaboration with Li Auto, a Chinese automotive manufacturer for new energy vehicles, in their new SUV model L9. It enables USB devices to charge while simultaneously sharing multimedia content with the vehicle. The device is in particular suitable for automotive charging applications, such as head unit chargers, rear seat chargers and rear seat entertainment systems.

“As a leading provider of USB-C PD solutions for consumer and computing applications, Infineon offers seamless interoperability for the automotive market by enabling both USB-C PD charging and display port alternate mode capabilities with the EZ-PD CCG7D,” said Ganesh Subramaniam, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Wired Connectivity Solutions from Infineon. “Model L9 is the leading car Model with USB-C PD alternate mode function globally now. With this, we enable charging of devices as well as multimedia content sharing in the car, providing convenience and a new user experience for passengers and drivers.”

The CCG7D-based alternate-mode solution implements two USB-C ports, with one port supporting DP-Sink and the second port supporting DP-Source. As a result, a two-way multimedia entertainment center can be implemented in the car, allowing USB devices to be charged as well as streaming video from the cell phone or PC to the car display and/or sending video to VR goggles. The integration offered by CCG7D reduces the bill of materials and provides an optimized footprint for solutions with an output power of up to 100 W per port. In addition to the CCG7D, a single-port variant, the EZ PD CCG7S, is available which is also qualified to AEC Q-100.

Infineon Tech New Power Mod HybridPACK  Drive G2

Infineon Technologies AG launched a new automotive power module: The HybridPACK™ Drive G2. It builds on the well-established HybridPACK Drive G1 concept of an integrated B6 package, offering scalability within the same footprint and extending it to higher power and ease-of-use. The HybridPACK Drive G2 will be available with different current ratings, voltage levels (750V and 1200V) and Infineon’s next generation chip technologies EDT3 (Si IGBT) and CoolSiC™ G2 MOSFET.

With a power range of up to 300 kW within the 750 V and 1200 V classes, the HybridPACK Drive G2 provides high ease-of-use and new features, such as an integration option for next-generation phase current sensor and on-chip temperature sensing, which enable system cost improvements. The power module achieves higher performance and power density through improved assembly and interconnect technology. The adoption of new interconnect technology (chip sintering) and of new materials (new black plastic housing) enables higher temperature rating, resulting in higher performance and longer product life.

The first generation (G1) of HybridPACK Drive was introduced in 2017, using silicon EDT2 technology. It offers a power range of 100 kW to 180 kW in the 750 V class. In 2021, Infineon expanded its product family with the first generation of HybridPACK Drive Automotive CoolSiC MOSFETs, which allowed the inverter design to achieve higher power up to 250 kW within the 1200 V class, longer driving range, smaller battery size and optimized system size and cost. With a track record of nearly 3 million units sold in various global electric vehicle platforms, the HybridPACK Drive is now Infineon’s market-leading power module.

Biometric Vox Vehicle Access System with Antolin

In a project led by Antolin, the voice biometrics technology of the company Biometric Vox has been developed and integrated into a Vehicle Access System with the support of the electronics supplier AED-Vantage.

This program will shape the future of vehicle accessibility, safety, and personalized vehicle configurations, also boosting the user experience.

Digital transformation is reaching all sectors and one of those that is betting the most on digitization is the automotive sector; in fact, smart cars, fully connected and even autonomous cars are being developed for the near future in which voice biometrics will play a very important role.

Voice biometrics makes it possible to identify a person through the voice by analyzing a series of biometric parameters. In this way, the car will be able to identify the driver’s voice and offer advantages such as:

  • Opening and starting the car with the voice: the authorized driver will only need his voice to access and start the car, quickly and easily, without the need for physical keys!
  • Customized driver settings: by identifying and recognizing the authorized driver, the car will be able to set the driver’s settings, such as seat and mirror placement, favorite music, or even read the latest mails received or social media posts as an assistant.
  • Security guarantee: Keys and physical devices in general are susceptible to manipulation or replication; however, the biometric parameters of a person’s speech cannot be altered or duplicated, so voice biometrics guarantees that no unauthorized person can access the vehicle.

The technology developed by Biometric Vox has been integrated into an Exterior Vehicle Access System, developed by Antolin and awarded at the last edition of the CES Las Vegas 2023 consumer electronics show. This safe and convenient access system is a combined software and hardware solution for seamless integration into the driver’s door or any other external area of the vehicle.

The system includes several authentication methods to access the vehicle: biometric data (voice recognition, facial recognition, and fingerprint), digital key ( mobile phone app or NFC card) and PIN code. In this way, drivers are protected against unauthorized access and vehicle theft, requesting, if necessary, double authentication for access.