Week In Review: Auto, Security, Pervasive Computing

Automotive
Renesas and AVL Software and Functions are collaborating to support developers of automotive ISO 26262-compliant electronic control units (ECUs). Renesas sells automotive R-Car SoCs, RH850 automotive control MCUs, PMICs, and software for levels ASIL B to ASIL D of ISO26262, but even with automotive ISO26262 parts, ECU system development process is never plug and play. Functional safety ISO 26262 compliance means testing the whole ADAS or other automotive system as a whole. Under the deal, Renesas’ automotive chip customers can be supported by AVL’s automotive expertise in developing and testing automotive systems. “With the proliferation of ADAS/AD, the number of ECUs that need to support functional safety is only going to increase,” said Dirk Geyer, director functional safety and cyber security at AVL in a press release. “AVL can provide both hardware and software support for various levels of safety, including advanced support such as customized FMEDA and product-specific failure rate analysis.”

Daimler Truck is using Siemens’ Simcenter STAR-CCM+ multiphysics CFD software to improve the aerodynamics and thermal issues in its upcoming CO2-neutral vehicles.

Ford, Volvo, and startup Redwood Materials have joined forces to work on EV battery recycling.

TAG Heuer Porsche Formula E Team won the Mexico City E-Prix, an electric-vehicle race. Porsche Motorsport used on Ansys to improve energy management. Porsche’s 99X Electric open-wheel single-seater racing car has a maximum output of 250 kW in qualification mode and 220 kW (last season 200 kW) in normal race mode.

Infineon is offering a new Class D audio power amplifier in a small size, with low heat dissipation, called MERUS class D audio amplifier multichip module has high power density and heatsink-free operation. To reduce carbon emissions in transportation, Infineon also plans to launch power semiconductors with CoolSiC MOSFET and .XT technology in the XHP 2 package – tailored specifically to street car and rail services.

Security
Infineon launched a new TPM (trusted platform module), the OPTIGA SLB 9672, to protect firmware updates against attacks using quantum computers. The TPM is a post-quantum cryptography (PQC)-protected firmware update mechanism with using XMSS signatures and expanded non-volatile memory. The firmware update mechanism has a 256-bits key length and an additional check based on PQC. The OPTIGA SLB 9672 can still be updated if the standard algorithms are no longer trusted. The TPM is available now. Infineon is also working on six new quantum computing research projects funded under Germany’s economic stimulus package for quantum technologies. The projects cover quantum sensors based on magnetic field sensors in silicon carbide, qubits controlled by microwave ICs, a demonstrator project MuniQC-SC, trapped-ion quantum computers, resource allocation, and services and tools for quantum.

GigaDevice Semiconductor, a fabless memory semiconductor company, deployed PDF Solutions’ Exensio Fabless analytics platform to monitor memory chips and pull analytics data to help improve yield and quality.

Beyond 5G
Keysight and Samsung Research have signed a memorandum of understanding to work on 6G technology. Samsung sees 6G as ‘hyper-connectivity’ made possible by AI, sensing, digital twins, time-sensitive networking (TSN), and holographic communications. The two companies plan to develop test and verification technology.

ABI Research predicts the machine vision market will reach US$36 Billion by 2027.

Companies, people
AMD completed its acquisition of Xilinx. Xilinx will fold into AMD’s newly formed Adaptive and Embedded Computing Group (AECG), which will continue Xilinx’ focus on FPGAs and Adaptive SoCs, in addition to being able to offer AMD CPUs and GPUs for customers’ projects. Former Xilinx CEO Victor Peng will run the group as president.

Read more news at Manufacturing, Test and Design, Low Power.

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