Shifting Auto Architectures


Domain controllers and gateways are being replaced by central processing modules and zonal gateways to handle all of the data traffic in a vehicle. Ron DiGiuseppe, automotive IP segment manager at Synopsys, talks with Semiconductor Engineering about how automotive applications are changing, what that means for engineering teams, and how they will shift as AI is increasingly deployed. » read more

Power/Performance Bits: March 30


Harvesting body heat Researchers at University of Colorado Boulder, Harbin Institute of Technology, Southeast University, and Huazhong University of Science and Technology designed a stretchy thermoelectric generator that can be worn against the skin to power small wearable electronics using body heat. The stretchy material polyimine is used as the base of the device. A series of thin therm... » read more

Car Industry Changing Under The Hood


After an initial burst of autonomous activity, the automotive ecosystem regrouped, re-evaluated its goals, and is now ready to begin deploying new technologies made possible by modern development approaches and forward-looking vehicle architectures. The pandemic hurt vehicle sales in 2020, but it also gave the OEMs a chance to catch their breath. Panic over announcements from other carmakers... » read more

Enabling “Triple Vision” – LiDAR Technology For Safe Driving


Cars are becoming safer, thanks to Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) features such as automatic emergency braking (AEB) and driver monitoring systems. These features are becoming ever more sophisticated, making automated driving robust. For instance, AEB began with merely watching cars in front. Now, it detects pedestrians, weaving traffic, cyclists, and objects in the road. Realizin... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: Nov. 25


Lidar-on-a-chip At the upcoming IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM), Samsung will present a paper on the industry’s first single-chip lidar beam scanner. (Go to this link and then look for paper 7.2, “Single-Chip Beam Scanner with Integrated Light Source for Real-Time Light Detection and Ranging,” J. Lee et al, Samsung.) Lidar, or light imaging, detection, and ranging, ... » read more

Chips Good Enough To Bet Your Life On


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss automotive electronics reliability with Jay Rathert, senior director of strategic collaborations at KLA; Dennis Ciplickas, vice president of advanced solutions at PDF Solutions; Uzi Baruch, vice president and general manager of the automotive business unit at OptimalPlus; Gal Carmel, general manager of proteanTecs' Automotive Division; Andre van de ... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: Sept. 15


Higher-res lidar Researchers from Purdue University and École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) devised a way to improve lidar and provide higher-resolution detection of nearby fast-moving objects through mechanical control and modulation of light on a silicon chip. "Frequency modulated continuous wave" (FMCW) lidar detects objects by scanning laser light from the top of a vehicl... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: June 30


Up-converting lasers Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania developed a filter chip that can convert the output from low-cost lasers to have the same frequency noise as big, expensive lasers, making them suitable for applications such as LiDAR. The noise in a laser's frequency is an important indicator of quality. Low-quality, noisy lasers have more random variations, making them use... » read more

Week In Review: Auto, Security, Pervasive Computing


An effort to fund U.S. science and technology initiatives with at least $100 billion is getting a thumbs up from the SIA (Semiconductor Industry Association). The Endless Frontier Act —  a bipartisan, bicameral bill introduced on Thursday in the U.S. House of Representatives — will invest money into semiconductor research and development and other related fields such as material science, q... » read more

Tracking Automotive’s Rapidly Shifting Ecosystem


The automotive ecosystem is becoming much harder to navigate as automakers, Tier 1s and IP vendors redefine their relationships based upon shifting value caused by an rapidly expanding amount of increasingly interdependent and complex electronic content. Predictions of massive change started almost a decade ago with a number of pilot programs around autonomous vehicles. But those shifts real... » read more

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