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Testing New Grounds in Automotive Electronics

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Testing New Grounds in Automotive Electronics

Article Reprint

Testing new Grounds in Automotive Electronics

When it comes to automotive electronics it’s all about cost and quality. With manufacturing real estate fetching a premium and automotive elec-tronics getting smaller and more complex by the day, how are manufacturers gearing up to tackle the technology challenges? The world of miniaturization has caught up with the automotive electronics industry. Indeed, Moore’s Law has slowly but surely made its way into most modern vehicles on the road these days. Let’s take a look at a few technology megatrends that are challenging the automotive electronics industry to look at more efficient ways to ensure the preservation of quality through efficient end-of-line testing before their products hit the road.

In Demand – Fresher Air

The call for a cleaner environment through carbon footprint reduction is seriously heeded in the automotive industry. Manufacturers are constantly creating more effi-cient engines and engine control modules (ECMs) or management systems to reduce vehicle carbon emissions. This is achieved through the use of more sophisticated engine management electronics to create a more efficient engine. The electric car is also gaining popularity. Under the hood of the electric car, banks of bat-teries replace the traditional pistons, aided by a battery of sophisticated electronics to regulate the utilization and deployment of power to various parts of the vehicle. Even in the hybrid electric vehicle, electronics act like the brain and nervous system, giving vital feedback to regulate the combined usage of gaso-line and electricity.

Muscle-powered initiatives

Government ini-tiatives in the EU, US and Japan are driving the automotive industry toward cleaner mobility. These heavyweight initiatives have created a need for more stringent carbon emission control. Let’s look at some standards on the horizon. The EU is targeting to reduce CO2 emissions by improvement in vehicle technology to 130g/km from 2015, and to 95g/km by 2020 for passenger cars. In the US, fuel efficiency is targeted to improve to 35.5 mpg by 2016 and 54 mpg by 2025 for passenger cars and light trucks. With the help of electronics, the automotive industry has made significant strides to improve fuel efficiency in vehicles. For example, automobile maker Ford has developed a new 1.0 liter engine called Ford Ecoboost to deliver power output performance equivalent to that of a 1.6 liter engine capacity.

Constant Communication

Another key mega-trend driving these technology challenges is the convergence of an increasing volume of informa-tion on board the vehicle. Consumers are request-ing more information be instantaneously available in a vehicle. For example, we are seeing the con-vergence of short message service, where the car can communicate with the driver’s cellphone and automatically read SMSes to the driver, who can respond immediately via voice.The desire to access emails on-the-go is also rising. Previously a prized feature in higher-end luxury vehicles, voice-assisted software acting as the driver’s personal assistant, reading emails, tak-ing dictation and carrying out simple commands is becoming a norm in midrange vehicles.

Commonplace Features

We are also seeing more electronics put into entry-level cars. Features such as anti-lock braking or vehicle stability systems pre-viously only available in high-end cars are becom-ing standard in entry-level vehicles. For example, the Ford Focus, a typical C segment passenger car, has auto-brake electronics that help to detect if a vehicle is too close ahead and automatically slows the car. Such features were available only in luxury vehicles as recently as a few years ago.

Downsizing the ECMs

In tandem with these megatrends, automotive electronics manufacturers have started compacting their electronic control modules (ECMs). Increasingly, we see a consolida-tion of modules – like how anti-lock braking or vehicle stability control modules are now being integrated into a single ECU. This not only saves space in the vehicle, but also cost, while permitting more electronic features to be loaded into entry-level vehicles.

Keeping Costs Down.

The increase in complexity of ECUs does not equate to a license to increase vehicle prices. On the contrary, the competitive nature of this business means manufacturers have to maintain or even lower their manufacturing costs. A common cost-reduction method is to increase throughput. In automotive electronics, the final quality gatekeeper is the functional test stage. Usu-ally, this is one of the most demanding stations along the manufacturing line, as all possible func-tional defects must be captured before any module is packed and shipped. Increasingly, manufacturers are looking at designing products for ease of test. What this means is that even at the product design stage, they already need to consider how fast and how economically they can test the end-product on the manu-facturing floor, what sort of functional test to deploy, and how easily they can move their test plan from the lab to the production floor, which could be halfway around the earth. Instead of investing heavy manpower in in-house sys-tem integration, some manufacturers are opting to buy standard functional test equipment from specialist ven-dors, so their internal engineering resources can focus on developing test plans and fixtures, and not expend time on racking and stacking as well. Outsourcing test to special-ists helps to maintain leaner manufacturing, which helps to ride out market volatility.To help save money, manufacturers need also con-sider equipment with better and wider coverage. Standard functional test systems can support as many as 464 test points, up from 320 test points previously. Many complex ECMs these days have around 200 test points. In the past manufacturers needed to invest in two test systems (and twice the footprint), while new technology enables them to make do with one system – in short, halving the needed footprint, as well as the number of operators needed to run the station.

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