Why chip design gets relevant for carmakers

Christoph Hammerschmidt, EETimes Europe
May 06, 2015

Chip design is something for IDMs, fabless chipmakers and the like, right? But times are changing. In times of connected and autonomous cars, it is a becomes a good idea for carmakers to get acquainted with chips. At the recent Cadence user meeting CDN Live in Munich, Robert Schweiger explained why.

There are many commonplace facts regarding the electronics content in today’s and tomorrow’s cars. For instance, that in every car generation the value of chips and control units in cars is rising, and that some 80 percent of the innovation in vehicles is associated to electronics and software. Without few exceptions — for instance, Audi’s semiconductor cooperation with a number of semiconductor manufacturers – the automotive industry contented itself with the role of the customer.

Current trends in automotive electronics as well as in chip manufacturing however could cause these two distant ends of the value chain to get closer together, says Robert Schweiger, Director technology Solutions Automotive at Cadence EMEA. So what does car design has to do with chip design? “This is what we have been asked frequently by automotive engineers”, Schweiger said. “They say: Since we do not make chips, we see no need to get in touch with companies like Cadence”. Perhaps they should think twice, because the software from CAE vendors like Cadence is the key to the IP contained in the SoC which run the software the carmaker or tier one is developing. “For this reason, it is not entirely unreasonable to have an active influence on this IP.“

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