What will happen on the automotive power management field? Bold prediction of the ABLIC’s automotive ICs.

2/10/2020
Techanalye Co.,Ltd.

This time, I introduce line up of the ABLIC’s Automotive ICs.

As shown in Fig.1, ABLIC prepares Serial EEPROMs (SPI, I2C, Microwire) which has No.1 share in Japan, Voltage Regulators (LDO Regulators), Voltage Detectors (Reset ICs), Li-ion Battery Protection ICs / EDLC Voltage Monitoring ICs, Magnetic Sensor ICs (Hall Effect ICs), Watchdog Timers, Real-Time Clock ICs, Convenience Timers, Antenna Diagnosis ICs and Operational Amplifiers for automotive use. Of these, Operational Amplifiers “S-19630AB” has already covered in the part 5 and part 6 of this column and other ICs described above also offer a variety of products which support various use cases from engine, transmission to car accessories and so on.

Fig.2 shows an example of the circuit with ABLIC’s automotive ICs. As the upper part of the Fig.2 shows, High-accuracy battery monitor IC (Reset IC) “S-19110” can be connected directly to the battery to monitor the voltage. LDO regulator “S-19213/4” supplies voltage from battery to MCU, Reset IC “S-19100/1” detects the supply voltage and Watchdog timer IC “S-19400/1” monitors the operation of the MCU. These are optimum ICs for the stable operation of the MCU. The low current consumption IC, which is the strength of ABLIC, helps reduce the standby current required for various automotive ECU. And center part of the Fig.2 shows the example in order to realize a stable power supply, DC-DC converter "S-19902/3" is connected as a primary step-down IC, and LDO regulators "S-19243" and "S-19251/2" are connected as secondary step-down IC. Lower part of the Fig.2 shows the example of the power supply to camera and antenna unit which require the connection diagnosis. LDO regulator with Current Monitor “S-19700” is diagnosis and power supply with one chip. There is also a lineup of DC-DC converters "S-19902/3" and LDO regulators "S-19251/2" equipped with small packages to meet the miniaturization required for camera modules. LDO regulator “S-19212” and High side switch with Antenna diagnosis “S-19680” support power supply and connection diagnosis to GPS antenna.

At the left of the Fig.2, there are battery protection IC “S-8235A”, “S-19192” and “S-19190” monitoring overcharge and overdischarge of the lithium-ion batteries which is recently used in place of lead-acid car batteries with the growing awareness for environmental conservation.

ABLIC’s these automotive ICs are developed based on the technologies that are accumulated in the past 36 years of their history of the innovation through the development of the consumer power management ICs. The market share of the automotive ICs is increasing with their advantage such as ultra-low current consumption and compact packages.

ABLIC says that they are boosting to support lower voltage output such as 0.8V or 0.7V and integrated their ICs in the ASIC in the near future (see Fig.3).

From now on, EV (electric vehicle) will widely be used, driver assistance will become popular and autonomous driving era will be realized. A lot of functions will be mounted on the vehicles.
Some of the features request lower voltage than current automotive chips use. And now ABLIC’s automotive ICs lineup cover almost all functions of the automotive power management ICs and their ASIC products are highly expected.

What about making a little bit bolder prediction for the future plan. What will happen if the evolution, which main processor proceeds all the digital processing such as camera image processing, signal from communication chips, which is occurs in the smartphone business, also starts in the automotive industry. More and more electronic components will be equipped on the vehicles and autonomous driving car will be a large electronics device like smartphone in the future.

At that time, as shown in the right of the Fig.4, main processor is put on the center and cameras, sensors and antennas are directly connected to the processor chip. And about the power management ICs, most of the features such as protection, detection and various voltage operations may be integrated in a one chip.

Next time, let us turn back to present lineup of the ABLIC’s automotive IC and learn more about the automotive battery protection ICs.

Contributed by Techanalye Co.,Ltd.
The company name “Techanalye” is derived from a newly coined word which combined “Technology”, “Analyze” and “for everyone”.
Techanalye reports system structure and trends by analyzing every single electronic device.