Most traffic accidents are caused by human beings. More than 1.3 million traffic accidents occur each year around the world. With the popularity of ADAS-Advanced Driver Assistance Systems and the development of autonomous driving technology, road safety has been better than before. This also sets up higher standards for automotive electronics and stimulates the industry to develop components with higher computing power and performance.

The following article will further discuss the future demands of automotive control development and give audiences a glance for the following article will further discuss the future demands of automotive control development and give audiences a glance at the future trends.

Till 2022, the amount of vehicle owners around the world is over 1 billion. This is almost a quarter of vehicles can be found in the US. Until 2022, vehicle owners around the world are over 1 billion and a quarter of vehicles can be found in the US. American drivers spend an average of more than 17,600 minutes behind wheels each year. With the development of autonomous driving technology and intelligent cockpits, drivers can free their hands to enjoy the car entertainment. Such demand for advanced driving experience further promotes the development of automotive electronics in the intelligent network connection.

Most autonomous cars use electricity as their main power source. Another driving force for the autonomous car is the regulation of energy conservation and emission reduction. Emission regulations in Europe and the U.S. are strict, especially in California. By 2025, the California standards will require all cars and light trucks sold to have a fuel efficiency of more than 50 miles per gallon on average. Such high emissions requirements will promote the development of automotive electrification and the progress of the electronic semiconductor industry.

Driven by the factors mentioned above, automotive electronic control will also be shown in changes in the following areas:

• Evolution Towards Multi-Domain Controller

Traditional automotive network architecture for multi-ECU connected distributed architecture. It is characterized by low bandwidth, a flat network, and each function requiring an ECU unit. With the increasing level of intelligent automotive network connectivity, the rich functionality of the car requires more ECUs. However, the more complex system architecture will lead to a decline in the reliability of automotive electronics. Such a network architecture cannot meet future needs.

Now, major car companies put their efforts into autonomous driving control units (ADCUs) and even central controller MDCs, prompting new models to evolve towards a functional domain-based electronic architecture. In this architecture, five major ADCU categories are network connectivity, body comfort, autonomous driving, infotainment, and powertrain assembly. All data is controlled and exchanged through a central gateway, which improves the operation efficiency of the entire vehicle electronic control system while ensuring a higher level of information security.

All data is controlled and exchanged through a central gateway, which improves the operation efficiency of the entire vehicle electronic control system while ensuring a higher level of information security.

In the future, the architecture of multi-domain control will move to a virtualized network architecture. A central computing center virtualizes the surrounding controllers through software, which can provide connections and process the information rapidly.

• Drastic Advance in Vehicle Processor Computing Power

As intelligent network vehicles move on from assisted driving to autonomous driving, L3 or even L4/L5 are being implemented As intelligent network vehicles move on from assisted driving to autonomous driving, L3 or even L4/L5 are being implemented gradually. There is a higher demand for the computing performance of the controller ECU in the vehicle control system. The current L2 autonomous driving requires 20K DMIPS (million operations per second instruction execution) and 1 TOPS (trillion operations per second) of com computing power, while the future L5 full autonomous driving requires more than 200K DMIPS and 200 TOPS of arithmetic power.

• Growth in Sensor Performance and Quantity

According to SAE autonomous driving level definitions, to achieve high-level autonomous driving, vehicles need sensors with higher According to SAE autonomous driving level definitions, to achieve high-level autonomous driving, vehicles need sensors with higher performance, such as LIDAR, cameras, etc. The comprehensive information input from these sensors can help ADCU (or central computer) to make decisions accurately.

In terms of sensor performance, the main changes are the line-of-sight and detection accuracy of the vehicle radar. The line-of-sight improves the system and can better complete the path planning. Accuracy is more conducive to driving safety, which in turn affects the overall vehicle performance.  The line-of-sight and more accurate radar brings the corresponding sensor chip performance and energy consumption improvement.

• Implementation of 5G+IoT technology

To achieve autonomous driving in the future, intelligent network vehicles cannot rely solely on the sensing capability and computing power. 5G+IoT (Internet of Things) technology, along with cloud computing services can fuel the industry. With the advancement of 5G and the gradual improvement of IoT technology, the evolution of driverless or mature self-driving vehicles will be more and more rapid. In addition, 5G+IoT technology can also make the network vehicles more efficient, convenient, and secure.

• Information Security

Although the vehicle is a tool for travelling, the future intelligent network vehicles are not supercomputers with four wheels. The future intelligent network vehicles need enhanced functional safety and information security. Functional safety is closely related to our travel safety and information security is related to personal privacy. With the development of autonomous technology, functional safety will face more challenges and information security will face greater threats, which brings vital impact on the design of automotive electronic chip technology in terms of safety performance. Automotive electronic chips and related control products not only meet the traditional functional needs, but also ensure the functional safety and information security of the entire car.

In terms of sensor performance, millimeter wave radar has been comprehensively upgraded in terms of frequency, semiconductor materials, and process technology. The millimeter wave radar frequency covers 24GHz, 77GHz. The process shifts from SiGe to RF CMOS, and from 40nm technology to 20nm technology, which improves the integration of the radar, imaging capability, and the recognition capability by deep learning. In the future, millimeter wave radar will develop towards imaging function and can meet the demand of full working condition accuracy.

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In terms of vehicle entertainment information system, companies start to include AI algorithm supported voice recognition, gesture recognition, face recognition and other functions in its i.MAX series chips and will provide customers with a complete set of toolchains development environment.

According to the changing needs and technical route of intelligent network vehicles, the future of vehicles is more like electronic products rather than traditional automotive electronics development. The Internet car-making enterprises creates greater challenges for traditional OEM car companies and automotive electronics semiconductor companies.

In the traditional field, the leaders in automotive electronics control semiconductor field have already had early layout in the sensor, ADCU, processor and many other key areas. They have launched a new concept and the actual product, for the future development of intelligent networked vehicles brought about by automotive electronics innovation and multi-directional challenges to prepare.

Ecotorn’s ADCUs are the product of and for the future autonomous driving industry. The powerful microcontrollers, advanced architecture, together with the state-of-the-art algorithms, make Ecotron products the best choice for your next smart EV project.Find more here: https://ecotron.ai/adcu/.