Automotive digitalization to spark growth for chips and design tools

The automotive industry is undergoing a significant transformation, shifting from traditional combustion engines to electric vehicles (EVs) to hybrid engines. Concurrently, vehicles are rapidly digitalizing, incorporating numerous sensors, communication technologies, and software. This evolution is reshaping vehicle architecture and revolutionizing manufacturing processes. 

A key aspect of this transformation is the increasing reliance on deep learning chips for autonomous driving systems, manufactured using advanced FinFET processes. These processes enable the creation of highly efficient and powerful chips essential for complex autopilot functionalities.

Semiconductor content in automobiles
As semiconductor content in automobiles grows exponentially, the design processes must ensure safety, ruggedness, and high reliability. Automotive systems must meet stringent safety standards, operate under harsh conditions, and maintain long-term reliability. 

This necessity has led to the development of new design tools and methodologies tailored specifically for the automotive industry, addressing challenges such as functional safety, thermal performance, and rigorous quality standards.

Consumer expectations are driving the rise of software-defined vehicles (SDVs). Consumers and businesses expect their vehicles to offer the same smooth user experience as their favorite gadgets and apps. This evolution transforms vehicles into sleek, functional software-hardware platforms. Future-proof SDVs are powered by complex computational processes that control vehicle operation and behavior, enabling breakthroughs in functionality and user experience.

Vehicles are becoming complex environments hosting a range of electronic devices with technologies such as 4G/5G connectivity, distributed applications from cloud to cockpit, and rich UI/UX. 

The consolidation of IVI, instrument cluster, head-up display, and rear-seat entertainment into high-performance compute (HPC) units, known as digital cockpit systems, is driving the development of complex HPC chipsets and hardware. These systems require multi-core compute platforms with GPUs to run applications involving 3D HMI, heavy compute, and AI with real-time response.

Multiple zonal controllers in vehicles connect directly with sensors and actuators, becoming a common trend. To meet this requirement, microcontrollers are becoming powerful enough to handle real-time compute with extensive data processing.

Vehicles are designed to provide the best possible user experience through applications distributed across cloud, mobile phone projections, and body control module-driven comfort applications, such as Digital Key. 

These applications require high-integrity data processing, secure authentication, authorization, and certificate-based access protections. This demand has led to the integration of secure trusted execution environments (TrustZone), secure storage for keys and certificates, secure boot, and safety cores for guaranteed process execution. Enhanced cryptographic processing capabilities are also being embedded into next-generation chipsets.

ADAS and autonomy are driving semiconductor vendors to integrate AI processing cores and separate hardware for vision processing, audio processing, and RADAR/LiDAR data fusion with camera images. These advancements support safety applications such as driver monitoring systems (DMS), occupant monitoring systems (OMS), forward collision warning, lane departure warning, and more. 

The intelligence of these applications ranges from warning systems to active and passive vehicle control, ultimately leading to fully autonomous vehicles.

Rise of EVs
The rise of EVs has increased the demand for power devices that manage electric powertrains and batteries. These devices often use advanced materials like gallium nitride (GaN), known for their efficiency and the ability to operate at higher voltages and frequencies. GaN is crucial for developing more efficient and compact power conversion systems, integral to the performance and range of EVs.

In summary, the digitalization of the automotive ecosystem is propelling the semiconductor industry into new territories, with automobiles serving as a primary catalyst for innovation and growth. As vehicles become more autonomous, connected, and electrified, the demand for advanced semiconductors and new design methodologies will continue to rise, positioning the automotive sector as a key player in the future of semiconductor technology.

Sasken is closely working with:
* Chipset vendors and tier-1s to design and develop custom chipsets.
* Semiconductor vendors for the design and development of chipset software platforms.
* Tier-1s to design and develop hardware/software platforms based on next-generation chipsets.
* OEMs design and develop end applications to realize customer use cases.

-- Rajiv C. Mody, Chairperson, CEO & MD, Sasken Technologies.