Automotive Electronics

Using a safety channel to counter weaknesses in algorithms could steer the automation of commercial vehicles, proposes Eric Richter of BaseLabs. The safe automation of commercial vehicles is a tremendous request from the market. Business cases appear attractive and technical issues seem solvable, yet still, ensuring the safety of such highly automated vehicles is challenging. Designers have to consider the ...

Diodes has created a range of precision current shunt monitors that have a -0.3 to 26V common-mode sense range irrespective of supply voltage, allowing both high-side and low-side measurement – and a reference pin is provided for bi-directional current measurement. Called the ZXCT21xQ family, there are six gain options: 50V/V  ZXCT213Q 75V/V  ZXCT215Q 100V/V  ZXCT214Q 200V/V  ZXCT210Q 500V/V  ZXCT211Q 1kV/V  ...

For vehicle functional-safety applications, STMicroelectronics has combined hot-swap, soft-start and ideal-diode OR-ing in an IC intended to work with a pair of external n-channel mosfets over 4 to 65V. Called STPM801, “the ideal-diode controller drives an external mosfet replacing a Schottky diode conventionally used for reverse-input protection and output-voltage hold-up”, said ST. “When a reverse-voltage event occurs, in case of ...

Current sensor maker LEM now has French national approval for its DCBM 400/600 electric vehicle rapid charger billing meter. “Is the first of its kind to be certified in France by Laboratoire national de métrologie et d’essais, the country’s national laboratory for metrology and testing,” said LEM. “DCBM 400/600 facilitates kWh billing integration into the electric vehicle market for rapid ...

Stackpole is offering 0.01% 2ppm/°C precision surface-mount resistors in sizes from 0402 to 2512 (1 x 0.5mm to 6.3 x 3.1mm). Part of its RNCF range, these highest spec parts don’t come in the wide value range of lesser RNCF resistors. For example: 0402 types are available between 49.9Ω and 4.99kΩ, then 2512 has the widest span of options,  between ...

Motor inverter maker Vitesco Technologies has signed a silicon carbide component supply deal with Rohm “worth over one billion US dollars until 2030”, according to the companies. This fruit was born of a development partnership started in 2020, leading to two unnamed automotive customers adopting Vitesco inverters built around Rohm SiC components, with “Vitesco supplying a first series project as ...

Diodes has created a series of automotive-compliant PCI Express 3.0 packet switches for in-vehicle networking. “The architecture used enables flexible port configuration with upstream, downstream and CDEP [cross-domain end-point] ports being assigned according to requirements,” according to the company. “They can connect with up to seven different endpoints and support multi-host applications.” PI7C9X3G606GPQ offers 6-port/6-lane operation, PI7C9X3G808GPQ 8-port/8-lane and PI7C9X3G816GPQ ...

Infineon has used its latest silicon carbide die technology in a 1,200V mosfet for automotive on-board chargers and dc-dc converters. The snappily-named AIMBG120R010M1 comes in a 10 x 15 x 4.4mm D2PAK-7L (7 lead TO263) package and handles 1.2kV across -55 to 175°C. Creepage is 5.89mm, suiting the device to 800V systems. Its ‘Gen1p’ process has been created to improved ...

Belgian lab Imec is claiming record ranging precision and power consumption for a novel 6 – 9GHz IEEE 802.15.4z UWB (ultra-wide-band) impulse-radio transceiver: 1.4mm ranging, and 8.7mW Tx plus 21mW Rx consumption in continuous mode. “It paves the way for a variety of automotive applications,” according to Imec. “One use-case includes the creation of radar-on-chip systems for in-cabin child presence ...

Faced with an empty driving seat, pedestrians trust certain visual prompts when deciding whether to cross in front of an autonomous car, according to the University of Nottingham, which has studied such behaviour on its own campus. The study used a fake autonomous car, with a concealed human driver, equipped with animated display panels on its front that pedestrians could ...