EV Architectures Evolving For Communication, Connectivity


Electric vehicle architectures are rapidly evolving to accommodate multiple forms of connectivity, including in-vehicle, vehicle-to-vehicle, and vehicle-to-infrastructure communication. But so far, automotive OEMs have yet to come to a consensus on the winning technologies or the necessary standards — all of which will be necessary as cars become increasingly autonomous and increasingly inter... » read more

The Good And Bad Of Bi-Directional Charging


Auto OEMs are starting to offer bi-directional charging in EVs, allowing batteries to power homes during outages or wherever else it is needed, and to smooth out any hiccups in the grid. But this technology also can shorten the lifetime of batteries, and it can open the door to more cyberattacks. The idea behind bi-directional charging is simple enough. EVs can store huge amounts of power, a... » read more

Shifting Toward Software-Defined Vehicles


Apple reportedly is developing a software-defined vehicle. But so are Renault, Hyundai, General Motors, and just about everyone else. Some of the benefits of SDVs include increased comfort, convenience, safety, reliability, and remote software and firmware updates. Preventive and predictive maintenance, and remote diagnostics, can be done more conveniently over the air, while vehicle behavio... » read more

How Secure Are RISC-V Chips?


When the Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities were first uncovered in 2018, they heralded an industry-wide shift in perspective regarding processor security. As the IBM X-Force Threat Intelligence Index put it the following year, "2018 ushered in a new era of hardware security challenges that forced enterprises and the security community to rethink the way they approach hardware security." R... » read more

Competing V2V Technologies Emerge, Create Confusion


The battle over vehicle-to-vehicle communications technology has begun, as governments step back to see which of two main competing standards and lots of related technology are best suited for reducing accidents. V2V is an often-discussed wireless communication protocol that enables vehicles to communicate with each other, easing traffic congestion, avoiding accidents, and ultimately improvi... » read more

Designing And Securing Chips For Outer Space


Design considerations for hardware used in space go far beyond radiation hardening. These devices have to perform flawlessly for years, under extreme temperature variations, and potentially banged up by space junk or other particles floating in the void over its projected lifetime. Reliability in space adds a whole different set of design considerations. For example, while it's unlikely anyo... » read more

Cybersecurity Risks Of Automotive OTA


Modern vehicles increasingly resemble supercomputers on wheels, with many electronic control units (ECUs) networked together as increasingly sophisticated software is installed and updated. Similar to smartphones, vehicle OEMs will contact vehicle owners remotely about operating system updates that add new features and/or fixes, as well as software bugs and vulnerabilities. But all of this h... » read more

Indoor Gas Sensors Proliferate With Better Standards


The gas sensor market is rapidly expanding, driven by increased concerns about indoor air quality and better technology for detecting and measuring it. Indoor air quality sensing targets gases and concentrations that differ — with some overlap — from outside. But until the pandemic, which largely coincided with a flood of new research about what is toxic to people and animals, this has b... » read more

Why Better Mapping Technology Is Critical To Autonomous Vehicles


Autonomous cars find the way to their destination using a number of critical technologies, including some version of a global position system and a central brain to interpret that and other data. But many of those technologies are not reliable or accurate enough today, and may not be for years to come. There are numerous reports of vehicles missing their stop, or trucks being guided into all... » read more

Improving Reliability In Automobiles


Carmakers are turning to predictive and preventive maintenance to improve the safety and reliability of increasingly electrified vehicles, setting the stage for more internal and external sensors, and more intelligence to interpret and react to the data generated by those sensors. The number of chips inside of vehicles has been steadily rising, regardless of whether they are powered by elect... » read more

← Older posts Newer posts →