Micron releases low-power memory for automotive safety applications

Micron Technology Inc. (Nasdaq: MU), a leading provider of memory and storage solutions, today announced that it has begun sampling the industry’s first automotive-grade low-power DDR5 DRAM (LPDDR5) memory, which has been hardware-evaluated to meet the highest level of Automotive Safety Integrity Level (ASIL) standards, ASIL D. This is in addition to Micron’s new automotive safety-focused memory and storage products that meet the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 26262 standard.

This LPDDR5 DRAM has passed the functional safety assessment and can be used in advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) technologies, including adaptive cruise control systems, automatic emergency braking systems, lane departure warning systems, and blind spot detection systems [subject to system integrator evaluation]. It also has high performance, low power consumption, and low latency, providing performance assurance and development space to meet the growing bandwidth requirements of next-generation automotive systems.

“Autonomous driving will make our roads safer, but the technology requires powerful and reliable memory to make real-time decisions in extreme environments,” said Kris Baxter, corporate vice president and general manager of Micron’s Embedded Products Business Unit. “To meet the growing market demand, we have optimized LPDDR5 for automotive, delivering the performance, quality and reliability needed for the smart and safe cars of the future.”

As electronic components become essential to ensure driving safety, automakers must follow strict functional safety standards to ensure that safety mechanisms can mitigate risks when a car fails. Micron understands the growing importance of functional safety and has established a dedicated department within the company to work closely with customers based on the memory requirements of automotive safety system designs. To help customers meet complex compliance obligations, the department led the launch of LPDDR5 within Micron, accompanied by safety application notes, and released the industry's first supplier-provided DRAM hardware evaluation report. Micron's hardware evaluation report was also independently evaluated and verified by exida, a well-known professional company in the field of automotive safety. By conducting this rigorous evaluation within the company, Micron aims to help customers in the automotive field simplify system design and accelerate their product launch.

“Functional safety is a critical component of the development of advanced automotive systems, but until now, memory has been somewhat overlooked and treated as a commodity product,” said Alexander Griessing, COO and chief safety expert at exida. “Micron is setting a new benchmark for the memory industry with the industry-leading automotive LPDDR5 that precisely complies with ISO 26262. This increased focus on functional safety will benefit everyone, including automakers and consumers who demand advanced, safe vehicles.”

Micron's low-power memory drives automotive innovation and green mobility

With the increasing popularity of ADAS and autonomous driving technology, data collection and efficient processing capabilities are becoming the key to automotive innovation. Gartner predicts that the market size of automotive memory will double from $2.4 billion in 2020 to $6.3 billion in 2024 [Data source: Gartner, Table 2.1 of the Global Semiconductor Forecast Database for the Fourth Quarter of 2020, December 2020]. With the rise of data-intensive automotive technology, today's ADAS-equipped vehicles run more than 100 million lines of code and require up to 100 trillion data processing operations per second, which is comparable to data centers. LPDDR5 can effectively respond to these needs by increasing data access speed by 50% and improving energy efficiency by more than 20% [Comparison data with the previous generation LPDDR4x]. This enables smart cars to process and make decisions in near real time from multiple sensors and data sources, such as radar, lidar, high-resolution imaging, 5G networks, and optical image recognition.

The high energy efficiency of LPDDR5 can help achieve high-performance computing in automobiles, while significantly reducing the energy consumption of electric and traditional vehicles, thereby achieving more environmentally friendly transportation and reducing tailpipe emissions. Micron's automotive LPDDR5 also has enhanced robustness, can be used in extreme temperature ranges, and meets multiple automotive reliability standards, including the AEC-Q100 specification of the American Automotive Electronics Association and the IATF 16949 standard of the International Automotive Working Group.

Unique DRAM with Functional Safety Assessment Accelerates the Time-to-Market for Smart and Safe Vehicles

Micron LPDDR5 comes with detailed functional safety documentation to help customers conduct a comprehensive safety analysis during system configuration. Micron provides a hardware evaluation report that verifies the extensive functional safety analysis in strict accordance with the ISO 26262 standard [The hardware evaluation report complies with ISO 26262 standard clause 13]. To meet higher safety requirements, LPDDR5 includes robust safety mechanisms to detect and control memory errors during operation, and system integrators can choose to deploy additional mechanisms to further reduce risks.

With 30 years of high-quality memory and storage solutions, Micron is widely used by leading automakers and has accumulated a trillion miles of driving [according to Micron’s estimates]. Micron’s deep expertise comes from close collaboration with automotive customers to integrate memory design into system architecture to support ADAS, in-vehicle infotainment systems, digital cockpits and machine learning. Micron is the number one memory supplier in the automotive industry.