Week In Review: Auto, Security, Pervasive Computing

Tesla customer video misuse; driverless bus service; Cadence adds AI to PCB design.

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Automotive, Mobility

Tesla employees have been viewing customer videos, according to an investigative report by Reuters. The news outlet surveyed and interviewed Tesla employees, who described using the footage for both legitimate purposes and entertainment purposes within the company. Some employees forwarded videos to coworkers. Even Tesla CEO Elon Musk was not immune. Employees found an intriguing residential garage video that showed a strange submarine. It turned out to be Musk’s garage and a submersible vehicle that was in James Bond movie, which Musk purchased. Tesla cars have nine video cameras, eight outside and one inside. Car owners have a choice to allow Tesla access to the camera footage for the purpose of improving or troubleshooting the car, but personal data is supposed to be scrubbed from the videos.

A driverless full-size bus service from Stagecoach UK is going live in Scotland. The bus is basically geofenced — it drives its route on specific roads and can travel up to 50mph, the BBC reports. It has a 14-mile route between park-and-ride lot in Fife and Edinburgh Park train and tram interchange. Two human assistants will be aboard, a safety driver in the driver’s seat and a ticket taker/passenger assistant. 

OEMs have high expectations for connected vehicles and global growth opportunities, but keeping the connected vehicles functioning and updated, let alone secure, is not going to be easy. With connectivity touching all areas of the car, inside and out, and the direct environment around the car, the main challenge is how to integrate all the technologies so they work together well.

Automotive startups that gained funding in March 2023 included DeepWay, Envisics, Venti Technologies, Genesys Microelectronics, UISEE, Yanding Information Technology, KKChips Automotive Electronics, Rsemi Technology, E-tronic, FervCloud, In One Technology, Tsingsens Technology, Bifrost, Corage, ElonroadExceedData, and Fran Optics.

The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is asking for more money from Congress to pay for its X-plane program in 2024, according to analysis by Aviation Week. The X-plane is an experimental plane that will be able to maneuver when airborne using bursts of air in place of using mechanical airplane parts such as ailerons. DARPA’s FY2023 budget request is $4.119 billion and its enacted FY2022 budget is $3.868 billion.

Pervasive computing

Cadence’s printed circuit board (PCB) design tools are now using AI/ML to speed up design decisions. Cadence’s Allegro X AI technology is built onto its system design technology through the Allegro X Design Platform. Using the AI, Cadence reports that the placement and routing (P&R) tasks have gone down from days to minutes without a loss in quality, and often with improved quality.

Renesas’s latest firmware upgrade to its environmental ZMOD digital air-quality sensors gives engineers the ability to configure the sensor to support the public building air quality standards for commercial and public buildings around the world. The Renesas digital sensors are among the first to be positioned for automated air quality monitoring by HVAC systems, which then can take action to improve the air quality in a building. Learn more about the issues in air-quality sensors.

Rambus and SK hynix extended their comprehensive license agreement by 10 more years. SK hynix will have access to the full Rambus patent portfolio through mid 2034.

Analog & mixed signal startups that received funding in March were Gatesea Microelectronics and Purus Microelectronics. Wireless startups that received funding in March were Xinyi Information Technology, SPARK Microsystems, Tianji Communication, Shengxin Electronic Technology, CoreHW, and Cmind Semiconductor.

Renesascellular-to-cloud development kits, powered by 32-bit MCUs, now support Microsoft’s popular Azure cloud services.

Banias Labs’ optical DSP SoC succeeded on its first-pass silicon. The company used Synopsys 112G Ethernet PHY IP and EDA Design Suite.

Security

Sternum found some zero-day vulnerabilities in QNAP (Quality Network Appliance Provider) operating systems, which are used in IoT systems.

Chiplet security risks have been underestimated. Disaggregating SoCs into chiplets significantly alters the cybersecurity threat landscape. The industry is struggling to deal with security issues in a repeatable and cost-effective way.

Experts debate what is needed to secure chips and whether anyone can afford it.

Adding security into test is important now with all the connected test machines. Configurable security strategies are needed to be designed into devices and monitored throughout their lifetimes, according to this video interview.

Research

Recent automotive technical papers:

  • Evaluation Of The Thermomechanical Reliability Of Electronic Packages Using Virtual Prototyping
  • Automotive MCUs: Digital Twin Of The LBIST Functionality

Click here for more automotive research.

Recent security technical papers:

  • Covert Channel Between The CPU And An FPGA By Modulating The Usage Of The Power Distribution Network
  • Hardware Based Monitoring For Zero Trust Environments

Click here for more security papers.

Upcoming Events

  • User2User 2023, April 13
  • CadenceLIVE Silicon Valley 2023, April 19 – April 20
  • SPIE Optics + Optoelectronics 2023, April 24 – April 27
  • ITF World 2023: Imec’s flagship event, May 16 – May 17
  • International Memory Workshop, May 21 – May 24
  • Embedded Vision Summit, May 22 – May 24

Security

  • RSA Conference 2023, April 24 – April 27
  • IEEE International Symposium on Hardware Oriented Security and Trust (HOST), May 1 – May 4
  • IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy, May 22 – May 25
  • io Security Trainings and Conference USA 2023, May 30 – June 3

See more events on our events page.

Further Reading:

Read the latest automotive, security, and pervasive computing articles, or check out the latest newsletter.



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