Evolution of the Connected Autonomous Vehicle

The challenge with increased automation in vehicle use is not just about safety. Automakers also have to keep an eye on connected vehicle affordability and cost-competitiveness.

That is certainly a challenge when Texas Instruments says there are an estimated 1,400 chips in the average car and there are now more semiconductors in our vehicles than ever before.

Fern Yoon, director of automotive system engineering and marketing at the company, says its array of sensors not only is responsible for sensing the environment around the exterior of the vehicle but also monitors the driver.

She adds: “As the number and types of sensors increase, system complexity increases including synchronization of data for image processing and decision making, requiring higher bandwidth interfaces, low latency network architecture and higher processing capabilities. The industry also has to overcome solving functional safety implementation to address a multitude of failure modes to ensure safe operation of the vehicle.”

Safety by Design

Danny Shapiro, vice president of automotive at Nvidia, says safety is considered in chip design to reference operating systems and associated software stacks which are designed for developing and deploying autonomous vehicle applications. Algorithms and software applications are part of this equation. Key to this is to design them to meet today’s safety standards.

He adds: “One of the biggest challenges is to ensure that highly automated and self-driving cars can safely handle a wide spectrum of situations and scenarios in the real world. In simulation we can create rare and dangerous scenarios that you may never experience on the road but need to train the vehicle to be able to safely handle, without ever putting anyone in harm's way.”

Chip Consolidation

As for whether there is a movement to reduce the number of chips in an average car, embracing consolidation, Yoon says the industry is embracing new vehicle electrical and electronics architecture. The shift is toward zone architecture, which she describes as being a concept that “employs electronic control units (ECUs) group by location within the vehicle instead of function or domain.”

She elaborates: “By grouping ECU functions by location instead of domain, zone architecture enables consolidation of multiple domain-based ECUs like doors, wipers, lighting, etc., into a zone controller. The zone controller functionality increases compared to a body control module but enables the OEM to have fewer discrete ECUs in a vehicle.”

Device Programmability

One issue is that many of the chips are fixed-function devices that are non-programmable or updatable. Shapiro says this has led to the software-defined revolution. The aim is to design a platform with consolidation to a single programmable computer to reduce complexity, cost and energy consumption at its core.

Having a software-defined platform also makes the vehicles more updateable over time, like a smartphone does, and so in theory it can improve over time by using over-the-air (OTA) updates.  It also can bring artificial intelligence into the cockpit and enable the vehicle to handle a wider range of capabilities such as driver assistance and autonomous driving.

Shapiro elaborates: “For example, you can leverage large language models to have interactive conversations with your car without having to go to the cloud. The car becomes the expert, informing the driver what’s happening both in and around the car.”

Redefining Roles

With the evolution of connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs), automakers are redefining the role power, sensing, processors, high voltage, connectivity and motor control play. Yoon says the automotive ecosystem has evolved with automakers playing a large role in electronics decisions within an ECU. They are becoming not just automotive manufacturers but technology companies in their own right. With this development automakers and semiconductor suppliers have strengthened as well as developed their relationships. They have become increasingly collaborative and are heavily influenced by semiconductor technologies, which in turn influence future vehicle capabilities.

This means, in her opinion, that semiconductors no longer are a means to an end but rather a strategic tool that automakers leverage to achieve their vision and drive differentiation among their competitors. She says, “We see the adoption of wide-voltage bandgap solutions for more efficient power conversion topologies, array of sensor solutions to increase accuracy and information in vehicle control, higher power processors for increase computing capabilities, robust isolation technology for high voltage solutions to deliver higher power, higher bandwidth and more secure interfaces to connect sensors and controls across the vehicle and smarter motor control for safer and more efficient operation.”

Shapiro adds: “It’s a collaborative effort and a long-term partnership that extends beyond just vehicle delivery but rather the life of the car.”