Automotive Electronics

Melexis has unveiled what it claims is “the most accurate automotive pressure sensor ever made”. Intended for automotive engine management, the mems-based devices measure absolute pressure across 1 to 4bar. MLX90824 delivers a SENT protocol digital output MLX90822 has an analogue voltage output voltage “An accuracy of +/-0.5% of full scale is maintained over the course of the sensor’s working ...

Diodes has created a servo motor controller, complete with H-bridge mosfets and provision for potentiometer position feedback, for brushed dc motors in automotive manual headlight beam servos and industrial control servos. Called ZXBM5408Q, operation is over -40 to +125°C and 8 to 18V (45V transient survival), and up to 800mA (1.5A peak). It integrates voltage and temperature compensated internal references ...

At Electronica today, Onsemi announced a series of silicon mosfets with top-side cooling for automotive motor control and dc-dc conversion. They come in a 5.1 x 7.5mm TCPAK57 package (aka ‘TCPAK10’, recommended footprint 5.2 x 8.7mm)  with a 16.5mm2 thermal pad on the top side. “This allows heat to be dissipated directly into a heatsink rather than via a typical ...

NXP is aiming at electric vehicles traction inverters for up to two motors with its S32K39 microcontrollers. “The MCUs support IGBT as well as SiC and GaN,” according to the company. “It has enough compute power to support six-phase or two three-phase motors controlled by dual 200 kHz control loops, while hosting AI, machine learning or other monitoring applications. It ...

Onsemi has announced that Mercedes-Benz is using its silicon carbide VE-Trac modules in traction inverters within the all-electric Vision Eqxx (pictured). “Onsemi provides assurance of supply for its SiC solutions and the necessary scale to support production,” said Onsemi general manager Simon Keeton. The car, said the chip company, consumes under 10kWh per 100km, has a 100kWh battery and a coefficient ...

Infineon has introduced an automotive current sensor IC, available in four pre-programmed current ranges: 25, 50, 75 or 120A. Called TLE4971, they are “ideal for on-board chargers, high-voltage auxiliary drives and charging applications”, according to the company. “Additionally, the sensor is also ideal for industrial applications including dc chargers for electric vehicles, industrial drives, servo drives and photovoltaic inverters.” Inside, ...

Inova Semiconductors is proposing a 30Gbit/s bi-directional bus for vehicles, that will carry multiple separated data streams. Branded ADXpress, for ‘automotive data express’, “all raw sensor data can be transmitted via sensor-specific virtual data paths with deterministic latency to one or more evaluation units”, claimed the company. “The sensors can be connected to an ADXpress node via PCI Express, Ethernet ...

Renesas is aiming at powering automotive cameras with an ISO-26262 compliant multi-rail regulator IC – qualified to AEC-Q100 Grade 1. RAA271082 has a primary high voltage synchronous buck regulator, two secondary low voltage synchronous buck regulators and a low voltage LDO regulator. It offers four over-voltage and under-voltage monitors, I2C communications, a configurable general-purpose open-drain I/O pin and a dedicated ...

Infineon Technologies is taking orders for 8 and 16Mbit FRAM (ferroelectric RAM) aimed at automotive and industrial non-volatile data-logging. “The memories feature operation from 1.71V to 3.6V, support up to 54Mbit/s of throughput over a low-pin count interface and are available in a RoHS-compliant, 24ball FBGA package,” according to the company. “These products combine low-power operation with instant nonvolatility and ...

Tesla has been under criminal investigation by the US Department of Justice over its self-driving technology claims since last year, reports Reuters. The DoJ investigation is in addition to Federal and Californian investigations into self-driving claims by Tesla. In August 2021, the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened an investigation crashes involving Tesla’s Autopilot.  In July this year, the ...