The automotive microcontroller can control all the electronic systems in the car, including multimedia, audio, navigation, suspension, etc.; it is equivalent to the brain of the car, not only has high processing performance, but also has excellent node processing capabilities, carrying the It can balance the work of various electronic systems at the same time. It can be said to be a very powerful type of automotive chip.
Microcontroller integrates the central processing unit, storage, timer, and input and output interfaces on the same chip, and is also referred to as MCU for short.
With the development of smart cars, users continue to put forward new requirements for the safety, stability, and intelligence of cars. The realization of each vehicle function requires the stable support of complex chipsets and algorithms. MCU will play a role in the automotive field. greater effect.
MCU is generally the core chip used for automotive control. For smart cars, the application range of car-grade MCU will be wider, whether it is simple driving operations, such as engine control, wiper, window control, electric seat, air conditioning and other control units; or complex and intelligent The in-vehicle functions, such as body power, driving control, infotainment, assisted driving, etc., each function requires complex chipsets and stable algorithms as support.
Traditional automobiles use about 70 bicycles on average, while new energy vehicles need to use more than 300. The application fields include ADAS, body, chassis and safety, infotainment, power system, etc.
According to the bit width, the vehicle MCU mainly includes three types of products: 8-bit, 16-bit, and 32-bit.
(1) 8 bits are mainly used in the control of some simple scenes, such as air conditioners, fans, wipers, window lifts, low-end instrument panels, junction boxes, seat controls, door control modules, etc.
(2) 16-bit performance and cost are in the middle, mainly used in power system, such as engine control, gear and clutch control and electronic turbine system; for chassis, such as suspension system, electronic power steering wheel, torque distribution control and electronic Pumps, electronic brakes, etc.
(3) 32-bit is mainly oriented to fields with high requirements for automation, computing power, and real-time performance, accounting for nearly 80%, and is the most commonly used, especially in the realization of L1 and L2 automatic driving functions. Important functions, such as instrument panel control, body control, multimedia information system, engine control, and emerging intelligent and real-time security systems and power systems.
Microcontroller is an important part of the "car brain"
As the intelligent brain of the car, the Microcontroller plays the core functions of "thinking, computing, and controlling". As the electronic and electrical architecture of the car evolves to a centralized system, the MCU not only needs to inherit and undertake the collection, conversion and processing of high-dimensional data such as color information and spatial information. The transmission function also needs to undertake the core function of intelligent decision-making control. With the gradual improvement of the level of automatic driving, the MCU market is expected to accelerate growth.
Taking the electronic control system of self-driving vehicles as an example, during the driving process, various sensors will transmit the collected data to the MCU of the chassis system, power system, braking system and driving system, and the MCU will collect and convert the data , and pass it to the central system for mathematical calculation and driving decision-making, the central system will continue to pass the decision-making instructions back to the MCU, and the MCU will communicate to the execution objects in the chassis system, power system, braking system and driving system for instructions Execution, so as to realize the intelligent control of each execution object by the MCU.
Taking the vehicle control system of new energy vehicles as an example, the vehicle controller (Vehicle Controller Unit, VCU for short) is the core electronic control unit that realizes vehicle control decision-making, and is the central control unit of new energy vehicles. The VCU judges the driver's driving intention by collecting signals such as the accelerator pedal, gear position, and brake pedal, and monitors the vehicle status (vehicle speed, temperature, etc.) information, which is judged and processed by the VCU and sent to the power system and power battery system The operating state control command of the vehicle, so as to realize the control of the working modulus of the engine and the on-board power system.
Major Manufacturers of Automotive Microcontrollers
Renesas, NXP, Texas Instruments, Infineon (Cypress), and STMicroelectronics have always been the main suppliers of Automotive Microcontrollers. In 2020, the global market share of these companies exceeded 95%.
