U.S. government cyberattack; EU’s AI Act; AWS outage; AMD’s AI chip; new EV pickup; BYD launch in France; Mercedes’ SAE Level 3 approval; switching improvements; flash upgrades; DoD and Cycuity; CISA updates; EU tech investment; new developer toolbox.
The European Parliament took a major step toward enacting the world’s first laws around the use of AI. Known as the AI Act, the draft law won a majority vote following two years of debate. If the proposed regulations pass the next hurdles, AI systems posing an unacceptable risk to human safety would be banned — along with “intrusive and discriminatory” uses of AI, including biometric surveillance and categorization, emotion recognition, social scoring, and predictive police profiling. As for programs like ChatGPT, content created using generative AI systems would need a disclosure.
Fig 1. Facial recognition with emotion recognition.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) experienced an outage that impacted major companies, news organizations, and government agencies. On its health dashboard, AWS said it “quickly narrowed down the root cause to be an issue with a subsystem responsible for capacity management for AWS Lambda, which caused errors directly for customers (including through API Gateway) and indirectly through the use by other AWS services.”
NVIDIA dominates the AI chip market today, but AMD issued a challenge with its MI300X graphics processing unit (GPU), which enables companies to create generative AI algorithms like ChatGPT. AMD calls its AI chips “accelerators.” The MI300X can support up to 192GB of memory, compared to the 120GB supported by NVIDIA’s rival H100.
Several U.S. federal agencies and universities suffered a significant cyberattack affecting file transfer program MOVEit. While it’s not yet known how much damage has been done, the Clop Ransomware Gang has claimed responsibility. CISA and the FBI issued an advisory last week about a previous MOVEit breach carried out by the gang which took advantage of a known vulnerability.
The worldwide automotive semiconductor market size is expected to grow 8.1% (compound annual growth rate) from 2023 to 2030 due to a rise in electronic components in vehicles, greater use of electronic control units (ECUs), and the increasing importance of safety systems. The market size was $43.26 billion in 2022.
A new EV pickup has entered the market. The 500hp Telo MT1 claims a 350-mile range and a 106kWh, 20-minute (20% to 80%) fast-charging battery pack. It can reach 60 mph in four seconds. Telo says the MT1 has the capability of a Toyota Tacoma, the range and efficiency of a Tesla, and is no longer than a MINI Cooper.
BYD will launch five pure electric models in France. The company says its lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) Blade battery offers more safety, durability, and performance, while its highly integrated SiC MOSFETs optimize efficiency and improve range.
EV charging time may get shortened to less than 10 minutes if Toyota achieves its goal to produce a commercial solid-state battery by 2027. The company aims to grow its fleet of BEVs, and is working on new innovations for lithium-ion batteries, which may lead to more affordable options.
Mercedes‑Benz became the first automaker in California to win approval for SAE Level 3 conditionally automated driving. Once activated, DRIVE PILOT “effortlessly guides the vehicle within its lane” on suitable freeway sections where there’s high traffic density at up to 40 mph. Mercedes aims to get approval for speeds of up to 80 mph.
Fig 2. A Mercedes sedan with DRIVE PILOT. Source: Mercedes-Benz
With changes in the relationships between automotive players, a new tier of provider — 0.5 — is emerging.
Ford opened its $2 billion Electric Vehicle Center in Cologne, Germany, with a production target of 2 million EVs per year by the end of 2026.
Chinese electric car maker Human Horizons signed a $5.6 billion (SAR 21 billion) deal with Saudi Arabia to collaborate on automotive research, development, manufacturing, and sales.
proteanTecs announced its system-on-chip (SoC) health and performance monitoring and die-to-die interconnect monitoring received Automotive Safety Integrity Level B (ASIL-B) certification.
Infineon rolled out a new generation of 1,200V CoolSiC MOSFETs in TO263-7 for automotive applications. The company said the automotive-graded silicon carbide (SiC) MOSFETs offer 25% lower switching losses compared to the first generation.
Winbond released a high-performance, serial flash device. Its 3V 8Mb Serial Flash targets the automotive segment and small-form-factor IoT devices. The device is manufactured using 58nm technology, compared to the previous version that used a 90nm process.
By sharing and optimizing IP, Synopsys and Samsung aim to “accelerate silicon success for automotive, mobile, high-performance computing (HPC), and multi-die designs” and enable “automotive chip designers to reduce their design effort and accelerate AEC-Q100 qualification.”
Stoneridge is adopting Siemens’ Xcelerator portfolio to support the development of its next-generation automotive, commercial vehicle, and off-highway industry technology.
Cadence and Samsung Foundry signed an agreement allowing joint customers access to their respective design IP portfolio and SF5A process technology, which is Samsung’s most recent 5nm process variant to support automotive applications.
Lockheed Martin and GlobalFoundries announced a strategic collaboration to support semiconductor innovation, secure manufacturing of advanced and next-gen chip technologies, and develop a chiplet ecosystem. The goal is “to increase the security, reliability, and resiliency of domestic supply chains for national security systems.”
The Department of Defense awarded hardware security provider Cycuity an SBIR Phase III IDIQ contract worth up to $99 million over seven years. “The DoD has identified third-party semiconductor IP security as a critical challenge to be addressed as the Department develops evidence-based microelectronics assurance processes to support deployment of resilient platforms and capability for the warfighter.”
CISA released two security updates. One is a Binding Operational Directive that requires federal civilian agencies to remove certain interfaces from the public-facing internet or implement Zero Trust Architecture capabilities. The other is a vulnerability that exploits FortiOS and FortiProxy.
The European Commission approved up to €8.1 billion ($8.76 billion) to support research, innovation, and development projects in sectors such as communications (5G and 6G), autonomous driving, artificial intelligence, and quantum computing. The funding covers materials, tools, chip designs, and manufacturing processes.
Worldwide cellular IoT connections reached 2.7 billion in 2022, representing year-over-year growth of 29%, according to Counterpoint. Total connections are expected to reach 6 billion by 2030.
To save developers time when learning new tools, Infineon created ModusToolbox 3.1. The new dashboard application includes links to key documentation, training modules, video tutorials, and relevant community forums.
Fig. 3. ModusToolbox 3.1. Source: Infineon
Counterfeit or tampered chips may cause IoT and autonomous systems to suffer worse performance, safety failures, or security breaches. Researchers at the University of Southampton and the University of Edinburgh propose a “methodology for using post-CMOS memristor devices as a fingerprint to uniquely identify ICs.” The aim is to reduce the hardware needed on-chip to improve system auditability.
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