Maelstrom of Change Hitting Auto Industry
What has triggered an avalanche of change among carmakers? Indie Semiconductor’s Chet Babla breaks it down.
Featured
How a Small MEMS Foundry Crashed the CHIPS Act
What’s at stake:
The CHIPS and Science Act has created the opportunity — and federal subsidies — for semiconductor companies both big and small to return chip production capacity to the United States. But thus far, the Department of Commerce’s decision-making process has been shrouded in mystery. The latest announcement of Rogue Valley Microdevices getting the grant gives us a glimpse into the federal government’s inner workings.
Likely ingredients necessary to horn into federal funding action? Chutzpah, street cred, and experience in the technology biz.
Without the power of major market share, what does it take to horn into federal funding action? Likely ingredients include chutzpah, street cred, and experience in the technology biz. These qualities exist emphatically at Rogue Valley Microdevices (Medford, Oregon), a pure-play MEMS foundry founded by Jessica Gomez, once a lab operator at Standard Microsystems (SMSC) in Long Island, New York. Gomez worked at a small aging fab — attached to the then SMSC’s headquarters — where the company made MEMS inkjet printheads.
Gomez’s journey started with a local community college science degree. She gained first-hand operational experience at SMSC and went on to run a foundry service at a short-lived MEMS company in California. This background convinced Gomez that she could establish her own MEMS foundry. She launched Rogue Valley Microdevices (RVM) in 2003.
Read More »How a Small MEMS Foundry Crashed the CHIPS Act
VW’s Software Crisis isn’t VW’s Alone
It’s easy to pick on Volkswagen.
The dizzying array of Volkswagen’s recent partnerships, joint ventures and investments is all over the map – in geography and business focus. Worse, all this churn shows no apparent thread, at least to outsiders like myself, that might help VW to knit the tangle together.
Paired with VW’s frequent reorganizations and management changes in recent years, such deals beg the conclusion that the organization is in disarray, throwing spaghetti on the wall to see what sticks. Maybe things aren’t that bad. Maybe it just looks bad.
Read More »VW’s Software Crisis isn’t VW’s Alone
Can Silicon Alliance Survive What Broke Taiwan’s Silicon Shield?
By Bolaji Ojo
What’s at stake:
Taiwan’s political and business leaders adopted the Silicon Shield as a concept that would protect the island from geopolitical interference. Supply shortages and the renewed interest in localized chip production globally exposed the weakness of the Silicon Shield. Industry executives wary about restrictions on global collaborations are floating the idea of a Silicon Alliance of friendly nations. That concept, too, may fall victim to the landmine of national interests.
Did the global semiconductor industry jump from the frying pan into the fire?
This question is being raised as observers contemplate the expansive involvement of national and regional governments in the semiconductor value chain and the impact on the chip market’s traditional R&D, sales and operating structures.
Global collaboration, a fundamental pillar and growth driver for the semiconductor industry, is seen as coming under threat with governments and regional bodies trying to insulate their supply chains against geo-political threats and other instabilities, including economic dangers arising from uncontrollable shortages.
At industry events, chip executives are expressing reservations about the actions of national governments that they believe have imposed severe restrictions on collaboration activities in the areas of R&D, product exports, other procurement activities, manufacturing, foreign employment, IP and advanced production equipment.
While governments have always been involved in the semiconductor business, observers said they have assumed a more aggressive posture since the end of the Covid-19 pandemic. Somewhere in the rush to insulate their supply chains against shortages and manufacturing instabilities, the world’s leading economies have taken actions and made pronunciations that executives believe threaten to jeopardize the industry’s long-term health.
Read More »Can Silicon Alliance Survive What Broke Taiwan’s Silicon Shield?
How Many OSs Make an SDV Run?
Green Hills discusses the layers of software inside SDVs, and how they enforce “freedom from interference” between software.
Can Ceva Ignite Yet-To-Explode TinyML Market?
What’s at stake:
TinyML in embedded systems can be implemented many ways, often by leveraging beefed-up MCUs, DSPs, AI accelerators and Neural Processing Units (NPUs). The lingering dilemma is how best to develop embedded systems with machine learning that could fit in the budget of TinyML.
Almost every new technology overheats its industry’s imagination, followed by an announcement flood, promising new tools, software and hardware – all of which fuels dreams of rapid market growth and big volume sales.
Then, reality.
TinyML has reached this moment.
Read More »Can Ceva Ignite Yet-To-Explode TinyML Market?
Industry Pivots from Self-Driving to Software-Defined
What’s at stake:
Eager beavers in the auto industries skipped some fundamental technology and business steps in their rush to bring autonomous vehicles to the market. As they go back to the drawing board, can OEMs redesign an E/E vehicle architecture for SDVs that speeds up automotive innovation?
There is ample evidence that the heralded rollout of advanced autonomous vehicles has stalled. By any measure, it isn’t “just around the corner.”
Although I hesitate to knock the engineering community’s ambitions to develop vehicle autonomy, I can respectfully suggest that tech suppliers, automakers, thinktanks, politicians, marketers and media come clean on AVs. A collective intellectual dishonesty has blinded us to the reality that autonomous vehicles were never close to being ready for prime time. The result is a pervasive consumer distrust in self-driving cars.
Read More »Industry Pivots from Self-Driving to Software-Defined
Sonatus Discusses Software Foundation for SDVs
We ask Sonatus CEO: “What’s the ‘proper’ software foundation for SDVs?”
First, Software-Defined Sensors, Then SDVs
What’s at stake:
The concept of software-defined vehicles for whole-vehicle architecture is the automotive industry’s hot topic. But SDVs, for most OEMs, are still in early development. Nonetheless, “software-defined sensors” appear to have traction among carmakers. Why?
Software-defined sensors are going commercial way ahead of software-defined vehicles. This is because OEMs are now required to develop cars compliant with federally mandated Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB) rules, including Pedestrian AEB in low light.
Carmakers must pass tests of minimum performance criteria and meet a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) timeline.
OEMs are seeking an answer in “software-defined” sensors, largely because it might enable them to pass AEB tests without adding new sensor hardware such as thermal cameras or lidars.
Read More »First, Software-Defined Sensors, Then SDVs
Microchip On-Board Charger Solution for EVs
The adoption of electric vehicles worldwide necessitates effective charging solutions. This white paper examines the fusion of Microchip’s dsPIC33 Digital Signal Controllers (DSC) with Silicon Carbide (SiC) technology, which offers a comprehensive system solution and systemic design approach to develop an on-board charger (OBC).