There are more and more electronic applications in today's automotive applications, which can be said to be ubiquitous; the most obvious are dashboard-type and in-vehicle information communication systems or infotainment systems, as well as DVD navigation equipment such as GPS navigation and rear passengers. . Moreover, due to technological advancements, mandatory emission limits and safety standards, coupled with the increased safety and convenience requirements of drivers, the proportion of electronic equipment in the core system of automobiles is continuously increasing, while semiconductor devices are in automobiles. The number of applications is also increasing.
As today's automotive core systems become more and more complex, they will continue to move toward electronics. These systems include engine control modules, power transmission systems, transmission systems, diagnostic and monitoring systems, body control (such as power seats, power windows, electronically controlled door locks), and safety systems (such as anti-lock brake systems, anti-lock (Collision system, adaptive cruise control, emergency response control, airbag, rear and side detection radar, tire pressure monitoring and lane departure warning system). These functions will bring additional safety and comfort to the driver, but the question is how much?
For all automotive products, quality, reliability and cost are very important, especially those semiconductors used in safety and system critical subsystems. Moreover, automotive designers have to withstand huge pressures to cope with changing technical standards, agreements and regulations; and to meet the automotive industry's needs for product life and new model development cycle; at the same time, they must also meet the strict requirements of low cost and high output Claim. These factors, coupled with the increasing number of parts in automobiles, shorter and shorter development time and higher and higher performance requirements, have led many automotive designers to turn to non-volatile field programmable in core automotive system applications. Gate array (FPGA) technology to replace custom-built application specific integrated circuits (ASICs), microcontrollers, or application specific standard products (ASSP) that traditionally rely on.
Comparing ASIC and ASSP, FPGA can provide designers with a flexible platform that is easier to deal with new protocols and standards, and more importantly, new market demands. With FPGAs, designers can make modifications at the final stage. In fact, even products that have been put into use can be upgraded, and rarely cause product qualification problems and increase costs. In an environment where product development cycle pressure is increasing and system cost management is becoming more and more important, manufacturers are very reluctant to take risks; for them, the firing rework that exists in ASIC technology is expensive and time-consuming, and its Non-recurring engineering costs continue to increase. If an FPGA is used, only relatively simple software modifications and downloading new hardware configurations are required to implement the final design modification.
Outdated products are also a problem in automotive design. The life cycle of FPGAs, especially in terms of product lifespan, is generally longer than that of low-volume ASIC devices; some FPGA vendors have only recently declared the end of life for their products launched in the 1980s.
However, perhaps what people value most is the advantage that FPGAs show in dealing with expensive and time-consuming automotive qualification certification procedures. Unlike ASICs, once the complicated qualification procedures for FPGAs are completed, they can be used in multiple projects / projects, thus helping designers to save significant time and resources on qualification procedures.
Reliability and quality
Reliability data is very important to ensure the correct operation of various systems in today's automobiles. For example, when designing core systems (such as engine control modules and anti-lock brake systems), failure is absolutely not allowed.
Neutron-induced firmware errors pose a significant risk to the reliability of many electronic devices. Single event flipping (SEU) caused by neutron bombardment occurs in the memory cells of many integrated circuits. For example, for designers using FPGAs based on volatile SRAM, reliability may be seriously threatened; because this device uses memory to save the configuration state of the FPGA, if a SRAM FPGA configuration bit is flipped And change the state, the function of the device will be changed, causing serious data destruction or sending false signals to other circuits in the system. In extreme cases, a small error can destroy the entire device.
Moreover, neutron-induced firmware errors can significantly affect the overall system failure rate (FIT) indicator. These disturbances will cause the FIT index to exceed the standard, which greatly exceeds the acceptable range of the industry. This kind of firmware error is very difficult to diagnose and detect, so it will cause problems for maintenance and repair.
Because the automotive industry attaches so much importance to the quality of "zero defect", sooner or later, people will realize that, like the bad bits in the microcontroller program memory, the presence of neutron-induced firmware errors in SRAM-based FPGAs is a serious one. Quality issues. However, unlike microcontroller applications (which generally have error correction circuits (ECC) in today's automotive applications), SRAM FPGAs currently do not have a simple or cost-effective way to detect and mitigate neutron-induced firmware errors .
Obviously, for mission-critical automotive electronics applications implemented with SRAM-based FPGAs, neutron-induced firmware errors have serious hidden dangers. Since the existing detection technology is realized by periodically reading back the FPGA configuration, it is possible to let the corrupted data enter the automotive electronic system. With the widespread use of this vulnerable FPGA technology, a new quality assessment system may be needed to detect the immunity of automotive electronic systems to neutron-induced firmware errors. The readback circuit used to detect damaged configuration data is itself vulnerable to SEU failure or damage. In addition, the detection and correction of FPGA firmware errors will increase the complexity of the system design, and will greatly increase the board size and material cost.
Fortunately, the radiation test data shows that the non-volatile FPGA based on anti-fuse and Flash will not cause configuration data loss due to neutron-induced SEU events, so it can better meet the "zero defect" requirement . In other words, this FPGA is very unique and suitable for all applications where reliability or safety is important.
The growing demand for safety and body control functions will continue to increase the complexity of automotive electronics. Designers must be able to respond quickly to changing customer needs. For semiconductor suppliers, it has never been so important to meet the needs of automotive electronics designers without forcing them to choose between quality, reliability, flexibility, cost, and development time. In this ever-changing market, using Actel's non-volatile FPGAs to implement those system-critical applications is the key to success.
Guangzhou Yunge Tianhong Electronic Technology Co., Ltd , http://www.e-cigaretteyfactory.com