How do semiconductor manufacturers change from consumer electronics to automotive electronics?

Self-driving has become the focus of the next group after the mobile phone industry, and Taiwanese semiconductor manufacturers such as MediaTek, Lianhe, Ruiqi, Shengqun and other manufacturers are all full of horsepower, looking forward to a new world in the emerging field. However, compared with the consumer electronics industry, the biggest difference between the automotive industry and the consumer electronics industry is the importance and degree of security. If the relevant industry wants to get a share in the automotive chip market, the product design thinking and methods should be reversed.

Zeng Wei, director of the Reliability Engineering Department, said that with the innovative application of the Internet of Vehicles and intelligent vehicles, it will not only force the car to transform from the traditional machinery industry to the electromechanical industry; it is foreseeable that there will be more in the future. More and more electronic parts/modules are used in cars.

Not only that, but the inclusion of active safety technology in the New Car Safety Assessment Program (NCAP) has also become an international trend in recent years. Including the National Highway Traffic Authority (NHSTA), the Automated Emergency Brake System (AEB) is expected to be included in the 5-star rating system in 2018; the 2019 model year will be the Frontal Collision Warning (FCW) system, Lane Departure Warning (LDW) System, blind spot monitoring (BSD), pedestrian anti-collision are included in the 5-star rating system. The Chinese government will also include AEB in the evaluation of the 20-year New Car Evaluation Procedure (C-NCAP).

Looking at the wave of gold that the auto industry is about to set off, Taiwan’s original consumer electronics industry players have turned to the automotive electronics field. However, the threshold for consumer electronics to automotive electronics is extremely high, especially in terms of safety and reliability. Zeng Wei mentioned that today's consumer electronics manufacturers need to change their minds if they want to switch to the automotive electronics market. From the previous general consumer electronics industry, focus on functional design (Design for FuncTIon) thinking and turn to design reliability ( Design forReliability). Due to the maturity, stability, safety and reliability of car electric products, priority should be considered. How to effectively carry out the safety verification of advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), unmanned vehicles, electric vehicles, and how to perform supply chain quality verification and management has always been a major issue for car manufacturers.

Zeng Wei emphasized that security is designed rather than tested. Many safety issues must be completed at design time, and the ISO26262 automotive quality specification is primarily defining this.

Zeng Wei pointed out that the ISO26262 specification is divided into two parts, the first is "systematic failure". Such failures should be preset by the designer at the design time. The user of the vehicle may cause the product to malfunction or fail, in advance of the design time. To ensure system security; on the other hand, it is a "random failure". The designer cannot presume that the user of the car may cause the product to malfunction or fail. Therefore, when the car fails, it must effectively prevent the system from malfunctioning or provide another A backup path.

Therefore, when designing a vehicle IC, there is a design method called Redundancy, which is to have another channel to operate when the vehicle power product fails. To be on the safe side, two sets of identically configured hardware, software or designs are used to prevent another system from starting immediately when one of the systems fails. A single system may have a high failure rate, but with a redundant design, the reliability of the system can be greatly improved without changing the internal design. If the failure rate of a single system is 50%, the failure rate can be reduced to 25% immediately after adopting a redundant system.