Automotive/Transportation Electronics

As the automotive/transportation electronics market continues to grow, innovative new products such as AM/FM and digital terrestrial radios, automotive contact monitors, current sensors, radar system ICs, automotive functional test systems, and more are available to car manufacturers. Here are products of what is out there today.

Analog/mixed-signal ICs

NXP Semiconductors (www.nxp.com) offers a multistandard digital terrestrial radio solution for high-quality analog and digital radio for in-car entertainment, anywhere in the world. The system uses the company’s AM/FM Car DSP, the Nexperia PNX9525 including NXP’s own DRM and DAB software, as well as the SAF355x including the IBOC technology from iBiquity Digital Corporation, the developer of digital HD Radio technology.

Fairchild Semiconductor’s (www.fairchildsemi.com) FDMS2380 dual integrated solenoid driver solution brings automotive control system designers more reliable solenoid control operation using less board space. Housed in an 8 x 12-mm PQFN package, it offers built-in recirculation and demagnetization circuits designed specifically for driving inductive loads. Other features include overvoltage, overcurrent, and overtempertaure circuits to protect the device as well as a diagnostics feedback pin.

Fairchild’s FDMS2380 dual integrated solenoid driver

Maxim Integrated Products (www.maxim-ic.com) offers the MAX13037/MAX13038 automotive contact monitors and level shifters, which feature a wide input voltage range (±45 V), high ESD protection (±8 kV), adjustable wetting current, and integrated LDO. These devices consume only 28 µA of supply current, thus using half the power of available solutions. The innovative implementation of a programmable scanning period and active polling periods minimizes average current consumption.

Maxim’s MAX13037/MAX13038 automotive contact monitors

Engineered to provide economical and precise sensing solutions for ac and dc currents in automotive applications, the ACS714 and ACS715 current sensor devices from Allegro MicroSystems (www.allegromicro.com) are designed and tested to meet the stringent requirements of automotive applications. Housed in SOIC8 packages, the parts feature a 1.2-mΩ internal conductor resistance and a −40° to 150°C operating temperature.

Allegro MicroSystems ACS714/5 current sensors

Infineon Technologies ( www.infineon.com) offers the family of radar system ICs (RASIC) which could bring long- and medium-range automotive radar to midrange cars as soon as mid 2010. The RXN7740, the first radar chip, is a highly integrated front-end chip for the 76 to 77-GHz frequency range, which includes function blocks for the oscillator, the power amplifier, and four mixers for multiple antennas.

The BlueCore5-Multimedia Bluetooth solution from CSR ( www.csr.com) is ideally suited for advanced high-audio-quality car applications. In hands-free mode, it leverages the integrated DSP to offer best in class echo cancellation whilst in music playback, it uses the integrated codec to achieve an SNR of 95dB. In addition, with a transmit power of 8 dBm and reception sensitivity at −90 dBm, it increases transmission range and therefore further enhances the quality of reception.

CSR’s BlueCore5-Multimedia silicon

Digital ICs

Giving automotive manufacturers a flexible, highly reliable alternative to costly and complex ASIC technology, Actel (www.actel.com) offers the low-power ProASIC3 FPGA family that provides AEC-Q100, Grade 2 and Grade 1 qualification-passing a series of critical stress tests designed to ensure the quality, reliability and endurance of semiconductors in automotive applications. The parts feature a static power as low as 40 mA at 135°C.

Actel’s low-power ProASIC3 FPGA family

Presented as the industry’s first floating-point digital signal controllers (DSCs), Texas Instruments’ (www.ti.com) DSCs for TMS320F2833x devices are optimized for digital motor control, digital power supply and advanced sensing in automotive markets. These devices provide a 32-bit floating-point C28x DSC core with up to 150-MHz operation with 300 MFLOPS, six-channel DMA with powerful and flexible control-specific interfaces.

Texas Instruments’ TMS320F2833x devices

Components

The automotive-grade ACPL-M46T from Avago Technologies (www.avagotech.com) is a 1-Mbaud Intelligent Power Module (IPM) digital-interface optocoupler targeting the hybrid electric vehicle market. RoHS compliant and housed in an SMT SO-5 package, the optocoupler requires a 10-mA LED drive current and operates in temperatures from over –40° to 125°C.

Endevco (www.endevco.com) offers the 65HT-05 triaxial accelerometer, which operates to 175°C with 0.5-mV/g sensitivity. Packaged in a 10-mm welded titanium cube, the 5-g device can take measurements on lightweight structures with minimal mass-loading effects. The device can withstand 15,000-G shocks and has a resonant frequency of 40 kHz.

The Model G41 automotive relay from Global Components & Controls (www.globalcomponents.com) is now offered with an optional fully sealed enclosure to protect against harsh environmental conditions. A skirted version is also offered in lieu of sealing. The relay is rated for loads of either 40 or 60 A is offered with coil voltages of 6, 12, or 24 Vdc.

The automotive AEC-Q101-qualified SQ7414EN and SQ7415EN from Vishay Intertechnology (www.vishay.com), are 60-V TrenchFET power MOSFET devices in a PowerPAK 1212-8 package rated for a 175C junction temperature. The SQ7414EN is an n-channel device with an on-resistance of 25 mΩ, and the p-channel SQ7415EN has an on-resistance rating of 65 mΩ.

Test and measurement

Agilent Technologies’ (www.agilent.com) TS-5040 automotive functional test system includes the essential capabilities needed to accelerate test-solution development and deployment, helping manufacturers get their products to market faster. The TS-5040 is a scalable system in a 0.75-m rack that is ideal for testing automotive body control and safety electronic modules with just enough test capabilities to minimize cost of test. The TS-5040 automotive functional test system has the flexibility to perform RF standalone tests, such as remote keyless entry and tire pressure monitoring system, as well as a combination of low-frequency (ac and dc) and high-frequency (RF) tests specifically targeted to the automotive market. This test platform is also compatible with ISM band in industrial and consumer applications from 100 MHz to 3 GHz for remote control transmitters/receivers, remote metering, remote temperature sensoring and RFID.

Agilent’s TS-5040 automotive functional test system

Christina NickolasA