Automotive Electronics

Toshiba  has expanded its line-up of automotive N-channel power MOSFETs with the launch of two new devices: TK160F10N1, a 100 V, 160 A product and TK200F04N1L, a 40 V, 200 A class product. Target applications include EPS, DC-DC converters and load switches.

Murata has started mass production of its the XRCGB-F-A series of crystals for automotive applications.

Toyota is making 6000 patents on hydrogen fuel cell technology available free of charge to anyone who wants to use them.

Human interface technologies in cars, like touch-screens, head-up displays, haptic feedback, proximity sensing and gesture recognition, are going to be a big deal in 2015, said IHS.

The AA has warned against connecting cars to the Internet because of the dangers of hackers stealing cars or hacking into their control systems.

Ricoh has introduced an application processor supervisory IC with a wide operating voltage range up to 36V for automotive applications. The R5110 combines a LDO Voltage Regulator, Voltage Detector and Watchdog Timer in one chip.

Electronic Motion Systems (EMS) the Swansea automotive electronics specialist, has been bought by KSR International of Canada which provides electronic sensors and pedal assemblies to the automotive industry.

Auto is the fastest growing IC market, reports IC Insights, with a CAGR of 10.8% between 2013 and 2018.

Aimed at 360° angle sensing, two Hall-effect chips have been introduced for steering and other automotive applications. Made by Allegro, both have considerable on-chip processing. A1332 has an on-board 32-bit processor and EEPROM for factory and customer programmability. It includes segmented and Fourier linearisation for off-axis/side-shaft and on-axis/end-of-shaft magnetic sensing configurations found in electronic power steering and transmissions. 32µs output ...

At Electronica Toshiba announced the expansion off its line-up of image recognition processors with the launch of the TMPV760 series.