Key Factors in Improving Microcontroller Performance and Features 2006-21-0006

The increasingly stringent requirements in relation to safety, fuel economy, emission reduction, and onboard diagnostics are pushing the automotive industry toward more innovative solutions and a rapid increase in microcontroller performance.

This paper will list the key factors necessary to increase overall data throughput and provide the right features to satisfy the coming drivetrain requirements. The paper will address different aspects such as: microcontroller architecture, cores, memories, silicon technologies, assembly / packaging, and development tools. It will also present techniques to improve modularity, scalability and configurability that will offer a migration path to permit the evolution and even revolution of drivetrain electronics. Since quality and reliability requirements are among the most stringent of any application fields, the paper will outline the path to reach zero-defect products.

Other factors that will be addressed include technology evolution: The shrink path beyond 130 nm will be analyzed to identify advantages, constraints and costs. A comparison of new solutions will be presented for future nonvolatile memories. The architecture trade-off using embedded versus standalone memory will be examined.

The automotive microcontroller industry faces the enormous challenge of bringing together high performance, harsh environment, quality, safety, reliability, durability, long-term delivery, scalability, configurability, and evolution at low cost. This challenge can only be met through close collaboration between OEMs, Tier1s and microcontroller manufacturers.