Introduction to Automotive Microcontrollers

With the development of smart cars, users are constantly making new demands on the safety, stability and intelligence of cars. The realization of various functions in the car requires the stable support of complex chipsets and algorithms, and MCU will play a greater role.

What is an Automotive Microcontroller?

The automotive microcontroller, also known as MCU, is the core component of the automotive electrical control system. The MCU must have good high temperature performance and stability to control all electronic systems in the car, including multimedia, audio, navigation, suspension, etc. Compared with ordinary MCUs, automotive MCUs have higher quality requirements and are not easy to damage the car in complex environments. Generally speaking, the most important thing is reliability and temperature range, which is 0-70℃ for civilian grade, 20-85℃ for industrial grade, and 40-85℃ for automotive grade.

MCU will become an important part of the "car brain" and the intelligent brain of the car, playing the core functions of "thinking, computing, and controlling". As the automotive electronic and electrical architecture evolves towards a centralized one, MCU not only needs to continue to undertake the functions of collecting, converting, and transmitting high-dimensional data such as color information and spatial information, but also needs to assume the role of core intelligent decision-making and control.

Features of automotive MCU:

High processing performance, large number of network node processing capabilities, and extensive interface support capabilities:

High processing performance

To improve the processing performance of MCU, we must start from its core and software and hardware system architecture.

Large number of network node processing capabilities

The CAN networks in today's cars have a large number of built-in ECUs, and the size of these ECUs continues to increase with the increase in the number of nodes, so the automotive MCU must support more message buffers.

Extensive interface support

Automotive MCUs are connected to a wide variety of peripherals, and the interfaces may be UART, frequency synchronous serial, LIN-UART, and I2C, so they must have flexible interface connection capabilities.

Classification of automotive MCUs

Category 1: Purpose of use

Category 2: Number of data bits

The chips used in automotive MCUs are divided into 8-bit MCUs, 16-bit MCUs, and 32-bit MCUs, which can be used in different performance scenarios according to the different needs of automotive electronics.

Main applications:

8-bit microcontroller:

It is mainly used in various subsystems of the vehicle body, including fan control, air conditioning control, wipers, sunroof, window lift, lower-level instrument panel, wheel hub box, seat control, door control module and other lower-level control functions.

16-bit microcontroller:

The main applications are powertrain systems, such as engine control, gear and clutch control, and electronic turbine systems; they are also suitable for chassis mechanisms, such as suspension systems, electronic power steering, torque distribution control, and electronic pumps, electronic brakes, etc.

32-bit MCU:

Key applications include instrument panel control, body control, multimedia information systems (Telematics), engine control, as well as emerging intelligent and real-time safety systems and powertrains such as pre-crash, adaptive cruise control (ACC), driver assistance systems, electronic stability programs and other safety features, as well as complex transmission functions (e.g., drive-by-wire).

In various automotive electronic systems, automotive MCUs (automotive microcontrollers) are often used as the core of operation and control, and the dependence of automobiles on electronic systems has stimulated the rapid growth of the automotive microcontroller market. The application of automotive electronic systems is becoming more and more complex, and automotive MCUs are playing an increasingly important role.