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Automotive powertrain and safety systems under design today are highly complex, incorporating more than one CPU core, running with more than 100 MHz and consisting of several 10 million transistors. Software complexity increases similarly making new methodologies and tools mandatory to manage the overall system. The use of accurate virtual prototypes improves the quality of systems with respect to system architecture design and software development. This approach is demonstrated with the example of the PCP/GPTA subsystem for Infineon's AUDO-NG powertrain controllers.

Integration scenarios for ECU software become more complicated, as more constraints with regards to timing, safety and security need to be considered. Multi-core microcontrollers offer even more hardware potential for integration scenarios. To tackle the complexity, more and more model based approaches are used. Understanding the interaction between the different software components, not only from a functional but also from a timing view, is a key success factor for high integration scenarios. In particular for multi-core systems, an amazing amount of timing data can be generated. Usually a multi-core system handles more software functionality than a single-core system. Furthermore, there may be timing interference on the multicore systems, due to the shared usage of buses, memory banks or other hardware resources.

More than ever, microcontroller performance in cars has a direct impact on the driving experience, on compliance with improved safety, ever-stricter emissions regulations, and on fuel economy. The simple microcontrollers formerly used in automobiles are now being replaced by powerful number-crunchers whose performance can no longer be measured in MIPS. Instead, their effectiveness is based on a coherent partitioning between analog and digital, hardware and software, tools and methodology. To make an informed choice among the available devices, what the designer needs are benchmarks that are specific to automotive applications, and which provide a realistic representation of how the device will perform in the automotive environment. This presentation will explore the role of new benchmarks in the development of complex automotive applications.

More than ever, microcontroller performance in cars has a direct impact on the driving experience, on compliance with improved safety, ever-stricter emissions regulations, and on fuel economy. The simple microcontrollers formerly used in automobiles are now being replaced by powerful number-crunchers with incredible levels of peripheral integration. As a result, performance can no longer be measured in MIPS (Millions of Instructions Per Second). A microcontroller's effectiveness is based on coherent partitioning between analog and digital, hardware and software, tools and methodology. To make an informed choice among the available devices, the designer needs benchmarks that are specific to automotive applications, and which provide a realistic representation of how the device will perform in the automotive environment.

This paper outlines the results of a study performed to analyze the mission of TTCAN from applications to products for automotive systems. As commonly acknowledged communication is one of the key elements for future and even present systems such as an automobile. A dramatically increasing number of busses and gateways even in low- to midrange vehicles is putting significant burden upon the validation scenario as well as the cost. Accordingly, numerous new initiatives have been started worldwide in order to find solutions to this; some of them by the definition of enhanced or new protocols. This paper shall have a look particular on the new standard of TTCAN (time-triggered communication on CAN). This protocol is based on the CAN data link layer as specified in ISO 11898-1 and may use standardized CAN physical layers such as specified in ISO 11898-2 (high-speed transceiver) or in ISO 11898-3 (fault-tolerant low-speed transceiver).

Driven by factors like consumption, power output per liter, comfort and more stringent exhaust gas standards the powertain control area, has developed rapidly in the last decades. This trend has also brought with it many innovations in the ignition application. Today we can see a trend to Pencil-coil or Plug-top-coil ignition systems. The next step in system partitioning is to remove the power driver from the ECU and place it directly in/on the coil body. The advantages of the new partitioning - e.g. no high voltage wires, reduced power dissipation on the ECU - are paid with different, mainly tougher requirements for the electronic components. By using specialized technologies for the different functions - IGBT for switching the power, SPT for protection, supply and diagnostics - in chip-on-chip technology all required functions for a decentralized ignition system can be realized in a TO220/ TO263 package.

Increasing fuel costs and emission regulations force the car manufacturers to develop powerful but efficient engines. The 3-liter car (3-liter/100 km fuel consumption → 80 miles/gallon) is one of the slogans. To fulfill these requirements a fully electronic controlled Engine Management is necessary. Carburetor systems are replaced by fuel injection systems. Direct injection for Diesel as well as for gasoline engines is the clear trend for the future. The mechanical throttle systems, used for a long time will not fit to the requirements of direct injection. A DC motor for electronic throttle control in conjunction with λ regulation and exhaust gas recirculation are the key elements for low emission cars. Also the automotive ignition system is in a process of change today.

For highly automated driving, commercial vehicles require an Electric/Electronic (E/E) architecture, which - in addition to sensor fusion - ensures safety-critical processes such as steering and braking at all times. Among other things, a redundant 24 V supply with corresponding disconnection is required. The battery switch is a key component. Commercial, construction, and agricultural vehicles (CAV) need to operate at the highest possible availability and the lowest possible cost of ownership. This is why automated and autonomous driving has the potential to revolutionize the CAV sector. Driverless machines can be operated around the clock and almost non-stop. Platooning allows automated, interconnected trucks to drive in a convoy and very close to each other. Platooning saves fuel.

Fuel efficiency and clean combustion engine versus high engine performance - which will increase up to factor 10 in the next 5 years - with less engine displacement are driving more complex engine control systems in today's and future vehicles. The challenge is not only to design a perfect engine, but also to incorporate the right semiconductors. Beside this demand on high sophisticated electronics the demand on cost reduction - especially for small cars - is one driving factor for a smart partitioning. Infineon offers sensors, microcontrollers and power semiconductors for today's engine management platforms and therefore owns the right technologies to manufacture those devices. This opens up the possibility to integrate more functionality in less devices as in today's partitioning or to define electronics to simplify complex control strategies and to optimize the performance of each device.

ISO 26262 is the actual standard for Functional Safety of automotive E/E (Electric/Electronic) systems. One of the challenges in the application of the standard is the distribution of safety related activities among the participants in the supply chain. In this paper, the concept of a Safety Element out of Context (SEooC) development will be analyzed showing its current problematic aspects and difficulties in implementing such an approach in a concrete typical automotive development flow with different participants (e.g. from OEM, tier 1 to semiconductor supplier) in the supply chain. The discussed aspects focus on the functional safety requirements of generic hardware and software development across the supply chain where the final integration of the developed element is not known at design time and therefore an assumption based mechanism shall be used.

Recently, vehicle networks have increased complexity due to the demand for autonomous driving or connected devices. This increasing complexity requires high bandwidth. As a result, vehicle manufacturers have begun using Ethernet-based communication for high-speed links. In order to deal with the heterogeneity of such networks where legacy automotive buses have to coexist with high-speed Ethernet links vehicle manufacturers introduced a vehicle gateway system. The system uses Ethernet as a backbone between domain controllers and CAN buses for communication between internal controllers. As a central point in the vehicle, the gateway is constantly exchanging vehicle data in a heterogeneous communication environment between the existing CAN and Ethernet networks. In an in-vehicle network context where the communications are strictly time-constrained, it is necessary to measure the delay for such routing task.

This paper considers the verification of non-standard CAN network topologies of the physical layer at high speed transmission rate (500.0Kbps and 1.0Mbps). These network topologies including single star, multiple stars, and hybrid topologies (multiple stars in combination with linear bus or with ring topology) are simulated by using behavior modeling language (VHDL-AMS) in comparison to measurement. Throughout the verification process, CAN transceiver behavioral model together with other CAN physical layer simulation components have been proved to be very accurate. The modeling of measurement environment of the CAN network is discussed, showing how to get the measurement and simulation results well matched. This demonstrates that the simulation solution is reliable, which is highly desired and very important for the verification requirement in CAN physical layer design.

This paper will give an overview of multicore in automotive applications, covering the trends, benefits, challenges, and implementation scenarios. The automotive silicon industry has been building multicore and multiprocessor systems for a long time. The reasons for this choice have been: increased performance, safety redundancy, increased I/O & peripheral, access to multiple architectures (performance type e.g. DSP) and technologies. In the past, multiprocessors have been mainly considered as multi-die, multi-package with simple interconnection such as serial or parallel busses with possible shared memories. The new challenge is to implement a multicore, micro-processor that combines two or more independent processors into a single package, often a single integrated circuit (IC). The multicores allow a computing device to exhibit some form of thread-level parallelism (TLP).

In modern vehicles, the number of small electrical drive systems is still increasing continuously for blowers, fans and pumps as well as for window lifts, sunroofs and doors. Requirements and operating conditions for such systems varies, hence there are many different solutions available for controlling such motors. In most applications, simple, low-cost DC motors are used. For higher requirements regarding operating time and in stop-start capable systems, the focus turns to highly efficient and durable brushless DC motors with electronic commutation. This paper compares various electronic control concepts from a semiconductor vendor point of view. These concepts include discrete control using relays or MOSFETs. Furthermore integrated motor drivers are discussed, including system-on-chip solutions for specific applications, e.g. specific ICs for window lift motors with LIN interface.

A variety of methodologies to use embedded multicore controllers efficiently has been discussed in the last years. Several assumptions are usually made in the automotive domain, such as static assignment of tasks to the cores. This paper shows an approach for efficient task allocation depending on different system modes. An engine management system (EMS) is used as application example, and the performance improvement compared to static allocation is assessed. The paper is structured as follows: First the control algorithms for the EMS will be classified according to operating modes. The classified algorithms will be allocated to the cores, depending on the operating mode. We identify mode transition points, allowing a reliable switch without neglecting timing requirements. As a next step, it will be shown that a load distribution by mode-dependent task allocation would be better balanced than a static task allocation.

For the past approximately 20 years, the Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) has been the established standard for serial communication between a host or central microprocessor and peripheral devices. This standard has been used extensively in control modules covering the entire spectrum of automotive applications, as well as non-automotive applications. As the complexity of engine control modules grows, with the number of vehicle actuators being controlled and monitored increasing, the number of loads the central microprocessor has to manage is growing accordingly. These loads are typically controlled using discrete and pulse-width modulated (PWM) outputs from the microcontroller when real-time operation is essential or via SPI when real-time response is not critical. The increase of already high pin-count on microcontrollers, the associated routing effort and demand for connected power stages is a concern of cost and reliability for future ECU designs.

An innovative way of lowering engine fuel consumption is to reduce engine displacement. However, smaller engines featuring reduced swept volume typically exhibit insufficient torque at low engine speeds. Conventional exhaust turbochargers are not able to compensate for this behavior and additionally suffer from the familiar turbo lag. One possible solution may be an electrically assisted turbocharger, with a high-speed motor providing the extra boost at low engine speeds. A critical factor for the efficiency of the concept is the ratio of the electric motor torque and the rotational mass inertia of the rotor. Testbench evaluation shows acceleration times of 0.5 seconds to reach speeds up to 70,000 rpm. Typically, the electrical load of such systems goes up to 3 kW. Target motors are various types of electrically commutated motors such as BLDC, switched reluctance or induction motors.

Advanced safety features and new services in connected cars depend on the security of the underlying vehicle functions. Due to the interconnection with the outside world and as a result of being an embedded system a modern vehicle is exposed to both, malicious activities as faced by traditional IT world systems as well as physical attacks. This introduces the need for utilizing hardware-assisted security measures to prevent both kinds of attacks. In this paper we present a survey of the different classes of hardware security devices and depict their different functional range and application. We demonstrate the feasibility of our approach by conducting a case study on an exemplary implementation of a function-on-demand use case. In particular, our example outlines how to apply the different hardware security approaches in practice to address real-world security topics. We conclude with an assessment of today’s hardware security devices.

More and more passenger cars are equipped with passive side protection systems such as thorax airbags for front and rear passengers. In the past, side airbag protection systems used sensors based on acceleration measurements [1]. In the meantime different sensor principles have been tested in order to increase the performance of this application. The intention has been to achieve faster firing decisions and to decrease the misuse risk for a floor or chassis impact. This paper presents the partitioning of an advanced chipset for pressure and acceleration based airbag systems. It shows the communication link between the sensors, the receiver-IC and other blocks in the application.

The electrification of the powertrain is still one of the main challenges and innovation drivers for modern cars. With the introduction of the Toyota Prius, launched in Japan in 1997 the first commercially available hybrid car in mass production, the development continued towards the BMW i3 launched in July 2013. One main component for all kind of hybrid cars is still the power semiconductor, which is used for DC/DC converters and for the inverter to drive the electric motor for the traction control. What makes the selection of the right power semiconductor complex, is the variety of different voltage levels within the car (from standard 12V board net, the new 48V board net all the way up to 400V and above) plus different requirements in terms of switching and conduction performance, or accordingly power losses. The selection of device by application and voltage will be discussed in this paper.