MediaTek chips enter Volkswagen Audi cockpit

Most people think that MediaTek is a mobile phone chip company, but in fact, MediaTek's business is diversified. Taking the second quarter of 2021 as an example, mobile phones accounted for 57% of its revenue, smart devices including automotive, IoT, ASIC (mainly in the field of network and server) and computing (mainly artificial intelligence chips) accounted for 22% of its revenue, smart home accounted for 14%, and power chips accounted for 7%. MediaTek is already the world's fourth largest IC design company, with an estimated revenue of approximately US$15 billion in 2021.

 MediaTek's automotive products are code-named Huangshan. MediaTek began developing automotive chips in 2016. It was once an independent business unit and was merged into the Smart Device Business Unit in September 2020. One of the main products is a product in cooperation with Geely, the other is the MT2712 for cockpits, the MT2706 for ultra-short-range millimeter-wave radar , and the MT2731 for TCU.

At present, MT2712 is progressing rapidly. The manufacturers using MT2712 are mainly Volkswagen, Hyundai, and Audi, and the Tier 1 partners are Samsung Harman, LG Electronics, and Visteon. Volkswagen's MIB 3 Regio version uses MT2712. It will be mainly used in South America in 2020 and will be expanded to North America in the second half of 2021. The Tier 1 partner is Visteon. The cooperation with LG is mainly for Hyundai and Kia mid-range models in India, and the cooperation with Samsung Harman is mainly for Audi's rear remote control system, which will be further expanded in the future and may cover virtual rearview mirrors.

Volkswagen's small SUVs, TAOS and NIVUS, developed for the Brazilian market use the MIB3 REGIO.

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Although it is positioned at the low end, in order to improve its competitiveness, Volkswagen uses a 10.25-inch full LCD instrument and a 10-inch central control screen. In China, even the high-end models of Passat are not so luxurious.

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As a low-end product, we naturally have to try our best to save costs, so we adopted a design that integrates the screen and the car computer.

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This is the PCB board connected to the screen, which has a Cypress touch chip on it.

Mainboard front view

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On the upper left is a Marvell 88Q5050 in-vehicle switch chip. Although it is positioned at the low end, OTA is also indispensable, and it uses a standard automotive-grade TSN Ethernet switch chip instead of the old EAVB Ethernet switch chip, such as the 88E6321 used by Tesla. Below is an MCU, which is naturally Renesas' RH850, which almost monopolizes the cockpit. The largest white chip is MediaTek's MT2712, on the left is Micron's EMMC, and on the right is LPDDR, with an estimated capacity of only 1GB. Above is a simple AM/FM radio chip.

Car back panel wiring diagram

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The back panel is very simple, with a USB port, a GPS antenna port, an AM/FM antenna port, and a customized multi-function port. You can see that it has all the necessary functions, including voice recognition and control, reversing image, and e-call emergency call for the European market.

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High-speed data interface. Although it is a low-end small SUV, it also supports multiple USB ports and Apple's CarPlay, which is on par with luxury cars.

In the back row of luxury cars such as Mercedes-Benz S, BMW 7 Series and Audi A8, there are options of three seats and two seats. There is a small device similar to iPad on the central armrest of the two seats, called the rear remote control, which can also be taken out and used by rear passengers to remotely control seats, air conditioning and screens.

Audi calls this remote control SCON2, and it can do almost everything the front row can do.

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Image source: Internet

SCON2 has rich functions, including adjusting seats and lights, playing media, selecting radio, making calls, sound settings, etc.

This is what SCON2 looks like when doing electromagnetic testing.

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There are Audi and Samsung Harman labels on the back

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The display screen is from Lingju, custom-made for Audi, with a size of 5.66 inches and model number GPM1866A.

The display screen after disassembly

Image source: Internet

Image source: Internet

Here is a close-up of the MT2712. The peripherals include two Micron LPDDRs, a Samsung EMMC, and an NXP chip that does power management for the MT2712. The MCU is NXP's popular out-of-stock product FS32K.

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In the future, MediaTek will combine its laptop and car machine product lines into one, just like Qualcomm. Qualcomm's SA8195P is the car-specification version of the Snapdragon 8Cx for laptops, while MediaTek's MT8195 is also aimed at laptops. The 6nm process is more advanced than the 7nm of the SA8195P. In terms of CPU, MediaTek has an advantage, while GPU is Qualcomm's strength. However, AMD will cooperate with MediaTek to make up for the GPU disadvantage. In the future, MediaTek and Qualcomm will also compete fiercely in the field of car machines.