Infineon talks about the development trend of low-carbon and digitalization of automobiles in the future

In September this year, China's new energy vehicle sales reached 708,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 93.9%, and the market share reached 27.1%. As of September, the cumulative sales of new energy vehicles this year have reached 4.567 million units. Therefore, the industry also estimates that the number of new energy vehicles this year is expected to exceed 6.5 million units. Various cool and intelligent EV models have also made their debut. There is endless news about local brands successfully going overseas.

So how does Infineon, which has been deeply involved in the automotive electronics field for more than 40 years and is firmly among the top players in the global automotive semiconductor field, view the future new energy vehicle market prospects and more environmentally friendly, intelligent and safe future travel, as well as the future automotive electronic and electrical architecture? And what impact will digital evolution have on the industry?

Recently, at EEVIA's 10th Annual China Hard Technology Media Forum and 2022 Industry Chain Research and Innovation Trend Outlook Seminar, Yang Dawen, Infineon's Safety Interconnect System Division, Automotive Grade WiFi/BT and Security Product Application Market Management Manager, brought us Here comes the answer.

With the vigorous development of new energy vehicles in recent years, state-owned brand vehicles will account for nearly half of the market share in China in 2022, and the biggest driving force will come from new energy vehicles and electric vehicles. Due to the energy crisis, especially the increase in gasoline prices and carbon emission requirements, electric vehicles have gradually become a trend and are accepted by the general public. With the support of the government and car manufacturers, it is expected that electric vehicles will usher in a very rapid development period in the future.

By 2035, Europe has already mandated that all cars sold be electric. Audi, BMW, Volkswagen, Honda, including domestic BYD, have already begun planning to stop producing fuel vehicles. Eventually, by 2040, the entire automobile market will change from current fuel vehicles to electric vehicles.

In the report titled "Infineon Empowers the Low-Carbonization and Digital Development of Future Automobiles", Yang Dawen introduced in detail some of Infineon's products and future trends in automobile-related fields.

He said that driven by the government and car manufacturers, Infineon's core related product layout in the field of electric vehicles is mainly divided into two categories: one is focused on the core driver of the car, and the other is the digitization of the car itself.

In terms of automotive core drives, Infineon provides silicon carbide products. Because of its early layout, Infineon has a comprehensive range of IGBTs, gradually upgrading from IGBTs to silicon carbide with higher performance and higher cost performance. At present, Infineon's silicon carbide products have been widely used by major car manufacturers around the world.  

Infineon has made advanced deployment on silicon carbide core components. First, establish strategic relationships with upstream (raw material) manufacturers to ensure a stable supply of silicon carbide materials in the future, thereby ensuring output and providing a stable supply to the market. Then we will expand the silicon carbide production lines of the existing factory, and put all production lines from 6 inches, 8 inches, and 12 inches into full production. At the same time, we will continue to invest in the silicon carbide field and continue to meet the needs of the new electric vehicle market. To develop a new generation of silicon carbide products to improve the performance of silicon carbide. In the entire silicon carbide field, from upstream materials to its own production capacity and investment in future technologies, Infineon has made long-term plans to ensure the supply of the global electric vehicle market, especially in the rapidly developing domestic electric vehicle market. Able to provide abundant silicon carbide materials.

In addition to silicon carbide, the core drive component of electric vehicles, Infineon also has a complete set of solutions for electric drive systems. First of all, the sensor is the perception system, which mainly focuses on magnetic sensors, etc., which are used to detect electric vehicle speed, motor rotation, power assist torque measurement, crankshaft position, inclination angle measurement, etc. For this series of sensors, Infineon will provide automotive-grade products with high reliability and safety. At the same time, Infineon also has the AURIXTM series of processors. The AURIXTM series is a very rich and sound microcontroller in the automotive field, bringing reliable, stable and sound functional modes to electric drives.

At the same time, Infineon also provides driver ICs, such as motor drivers. So from sensors to controllers to drivers and the core silicon carbide, Infineon can provide very comprehensive products. At present, almost all electric vehicle and new energy vehicle manufacturers will use Infineon-related devices to a greater or lesser extent, either silicon carbide or AURIXTM.

Now that we talk about electric drive, we have to talk about driverless driving. Yang Dawen said that in terms of autonomous driving, Infineon has many products to support the development of related technologies.

One is the advancement of technology. The so-called technological advancement represents the ability to detect the environment, correctly judge or predict changes in the environment, and make correct judgments in advance. This comes from technology.

The second is trust. When you hand over all control rights to driverless driving, you must have enough trust in it to ensure that the entire system will not take your car into a ditch. Even if it goes into a ditch, You can also get up from it. So from the perspective of autonomous driving, we believe that it has very advanced technology first, and at the same time it has a very good degree of trust. This is based on the ultra-high reliability or ultra-high robustness of semiconductor devices.

Based on these two premises, we believe that the unmanned driving system is divided into three parts from a chip perspective. The first part is the perception system, such as a reliable sensor. Radar needs to determine the obstacles on the roadside and what type of obstacles they are: animals. , plants or whether they can be crushed, etc. The data detected by very reliable sensors is provided to the intermediate decision-making unit.

A central gateway will be assigned to the decision-making unit to distribute this information and data. First, a specialized sensor judgment processing unit is used, perhaps information from the sensing part, and then an intermediate decision-making unit is used to judge the sensor data and distribute it to the control unit of the drive domain, and then to the execution unit. Therefore, the decision-making unit in the middle is equivalent to a brain that collects reliable sensor data and then makes judgments and distributes them to the execution unit. Then the execution unit needs to perform very high-reliability actions, such as engine, steering, light display systems, etc. In the entire system, Infineon provides corresponding solutions in relevant sub-modules.

Due to the emergence and development of new energy vehicles, the entire electronic and electrical architecture has also undergone some changes.

The first is network connectivity and data security. First of all, in the network connection part, 4G and 5G data from outside are transmitted to the car, and there are also connections to Ethernet and wireless network wireless sensors inside the car. Therefore, reliable communication of these data is very important in future cars. More importantly, the integrity, privacy, and security of these data. The so-called security includes whether the collected data will be stolen, whether private data will be attacked by hackers, etc.

The second is the electric drive system. New energy vehicles will be divided into many different types, but in the end they will pass through sensors, intermediate controllers, and then to drivers, and finally to the core semiconductor power devices silicon carbide or IGBT. Ultimately reducing or ending the emergence of fuel vehicles to achieve zero emissions of carbon dioxide is also a goal and vision of China's zero emissions.    

Regarding autonomous driving, there are different levels of autonomous driving from L0 to L5. The higher the level, the greater the independence from human control. If driverless driving is really to be realized in the future, you will still have to pay, because the levels of free and higher-level fees are different, and the safety they bring is completely different. Therefore, you cannot use a relatively low level, such as L0, and hope to enjoy the highest level of driverless experience. Therefore, for new energy vehicles, there will be different levels of driverless experience in the future.

Yang Dawen pointed out that this is the impact of electronic and electrical architecture on the development of future cars, especially electric vehicles. The digitalization of future cars is closely related to everyone’s experience of cars. Cars have a tendency to develop into a mobile phone state: one is to use the car as an information source like a mobile phone, and everyone completely relies on the car; the other is to use the car as an accessory to the mobile phone. Based on these two, we can see that on the car - the car entertainment system and components on the far right, these are the two places that ordinary consumers pay most attention to, which will involve the comfort of car driving. There are also remote wireless upgrades, parts related to driverless ADAS, and smart instrumentation, which are closely related to the future development trend of automobiles.