Automotive Engineering - June 2023 - 15

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EXPERT Insight
Infineon semiconductor technology helps makes electrified vehicles
greener, smarter and more secure
Electrified vehicles, whether hybrid, plug-in hybrid or full battery-electric powered cars and trucks, are growing in popularity exponentially.
For this Expert Insight interview, SAE's Automotive Engineering spoke with Bill Stewart, Infineon's VP of automotive
marketing for the Americas, on how his company helps automakers meet climate and government pressures.
s vice president of
automotive marketing for the Americas, on how his company helps automakers meet climate and government pressures.
Automotive Engineering: Climate and government
pressures are forcing auto manufacturers
to develop greener cars that are more
electrified. What role are semiconductors
playing in the future of this green mobility?
Stewart: It's more than just the climate and
governmental pressures. Electrified vehicles
are very fun to drive. I think we see a lot of
consumer push in the market for that reason
alone. Traditional gas vehicles today have
about $500 worth of semiconductors. A battery
electric vehicle today has roughly double
that value, and it's increasing. Infineon is
here to drive decarbonization and digitalization
across all industries, but we are very
influential in the automotive space. An electric
vehicle's energy comes from a charging
system. Lots of electronics involved. The batwhen
that failure occurs. Can the vehicle diagnose
itself, and is there a redundant system
to back it up and take over? We don't
want a failure that causes an accident.
Automotive Engineering: How is Infineon
connecting the vehicle to smart cities while
keeping it dependable and secure?
Stewart: The vehicle must sense its environment.
It has connectivity mechanisms
onBill
Stewart, Infineon VP of automotive
marketing, Americas.
fineon vice-president of
automotive marketing for the Americas.
tery must be managed so it can be put in a safe state and detect
if anything is going wrong. You want to monitor state of
health and detect any sort of thermal event through electronics.
Infineon has the ability to convert that energy chain from
the charger into a drive to work or taking your kids to school.
Automotive Engineering: There also is a growing demand for
smarter cars using artificial intelligence, machine learning
and other technologies for more autonomous driving. What
is Infineon doing to deliver semiconductor solutions and
technologies that drive more intelligent vehicles while maintaining
dependability?
ehicles while mainStewart:
If you put the vehicle into highway pilot, adaptive
cruise control mode and it is not staying in its lane properly,
or you feel you're going to hit the vehicle in front of you,
you're going to turn off that feature. Dependable electronics
enable those features so that they function as intended and
the consumer ultimately feels safe.
We do that in three ways. First, with high-quality levels. You
don't want your engine light to come on and have to take the car
to the dealership. That's the best-case scenario with an AI failure.
The worst-case scenario is the failure results in an accident.
Next is security. We have an entire division dedicated to
connected and secure systems. We take a lot of consumer
technology and implement it in the automotive space so that
your vehicle is safe from such threats.
Finally, there's functional safety. We use millions of lines of
code to make sure that if something does go wrong, the system
keeps you safe. The vehicle has a lot of hardware, it can be
in a very difficult environment and there are going to be failures,
at some point. Functional safety defines what happens
6 June 2023
AUTOMOTIVE ENGINEERING
through 5G, through your cellular network,
where it ultimately communicates to the
grid. The vehicle must be able to detect its
environment and safely diagnose its surroundings
and determine which actions to
take. Does it need an emergency braking
action? Does it have to divert from one lane
to another? The products we offer are dee
designed
to build your trust in the autonomous systems.
Automotive Engineering: As vehicles become more connected,
what is Infineon doing to ensure security?
Stewart: Our microcontroller products have a hardware security
module embedded, which protects all the memory in the
device from hackers.
The hardware security module can encrypt all the network
e secutraffic,
whether it is within the vehicle or kept in the cloud.
This ensures that only those on the network are supposed to
be on the network. We also have root of trust anchors, which
provide a safe state for the vehicle.
A hardware-based route of trust uses different electronic
modules to validate who they're talking to and prevents a
hacker from causing further harm. We also have a memory
division working on providing secure memory, including to
the high-end SOC-type processors.
Automotive Engineering: What is Infineon doing to ensure it
is part of this drive to decarbonization and digitization?
Stewart: We want to enable more electric vehicles on the
road. Autonomy also increases vehicle efficiency by helping
avoid accidents and reducing traffic congestion.
Digitizing more of the vehicle and giving it more intellielligence
leads to more efficiency and ultimately more decarbonization.
It starts with electronics in the powertrain, it goes to
autonomous systems.
e decarbonWatch
the full interview with Bill at www.techbriefs.com/
ei2306/video/infineon
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June 2023 15

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