Happy new year, dear readers - welcome to the future! One vision of the future is the ‘connected car’, and many drivers seem to want that. As consumer demand for in-vehicle connectivity continues to grow, automotive manufacturers are under pressure to deliver competitive, innovative features while minimizing cost. A major stumbling block is cabling - it’s heavy, difficult to design and expensive.
»Connected vehicle technologies will enable automotive companies to address key industry trends: sustainability requirements, digital lifestyle convergence, changing market demographics, emerging transportation policies and new mobility innovations. The connected vehicle represents the start of a new era for the automotive industry where the partnership principle of ‘controlled openness’ will lead to new customer experiences and successful business strategies.«
Dr. Ali Abaye, Senior Director, Product Marketing at Broadcom agrees: »The increasing amount of gadgetry used in vehicles today rivals that of the consumer electronics segment. Broadcom is on the forefront of engineering innovative technologies that enable people to connect virtually everything in the home, hand and infrastructure. Automotive connectivity a great fit and a natural next step for Ethernet technology, and we intend to lead the way in simplifying in-vehicle connectivity while dramatically reducing costs for automotive manufacturers.«
Broadcom has just announced a fairly broad automotive Ethernet portfolio, named »BroadR-Reach«. It allegedly delivers bandwidths of 100 Mbit/s while reducing connectivity costs up to 80 percent and cabling weight as much as 30 percent.
The automotive solutions allow multiple in-vehicle systems such as infotainment and automated driver assistance to simultaneously access information over unshielded single twisted pair cable. By eliminating cumbersome, shielded cabling, automotive manufacturers can significantly reduce connectivity costs and cabling weight. The product portfolio consists of five devices including three highly integrated switches with embedded PHYs, and two stand-alone PHY solutions. Each device in the automotive portfolio is designed to meet in-car EMC requirements and extreme automotive temperature grades. Broadcom is TS16949 compliant and AEC-Q100 qualification is currently under way.
This announcement follows the recent introduction of the OPEN (One-Pair Ether-Net) Alliance Special Interest Group (SIG). Established to drive wide scale adoption of Ethernet-based automotive connectivity as the standard in automotive connectivity, the SIG intends to address industry requirements for improving in-vehicle safety, comfort, and infotainment, while reducing network complexity and cabling costs. Members include Broadcom, NXP Semiconductors N.V., Freescale Semiconductor, Harman International, BMW, Hyundai Motor Company and Jaguar Land Rover. License to specification for BroadR-Reach is available to all interested OPEN Alliance members under RAND terms via a license from Broadcom.
This industry has a constant needs that is increasing throughout the year.
Vehicles are becoming more and more complex.
Posted by: garage equipment | 01/08/2012 at 02:39 AM
It's becoming more complex because of the demands of time and the owners who uses it. This is just one step to the future of not just technology, but also the auto industry.
Posted by: Air Intake Kits | 02/09/2012 at 01:43 AM