Promote technological breakthroughs, ON Semiconductor concentrates its efforts on automotive smart power and smart perception

“ON semiconductor will build a better future with smart technology. In industry, centralized smart power technology realizes the highest energy-efficiency solar inverters, industrial power supplies and energy storage systems, bringing continuous development to these applications. In terms of intelligent perception, promote Industry 4.0, making factories, buildings and homes more intelligent. Today we are mainly talking about cars, especially silicon carbide that brings lighter and longer battery life to electric vehicles. In terms of intelligent perception technology, ON Semiconductor has launched many different perception technologies to improve the safety and travel of cars. Experience. Wu Zhimin concluded.

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As a leading semiconductor manufacturer, ON Semiconductor has design centers and manufacturing plants in many countries and places around the world, with revenue of 5.3 billion U.S. dollars in 2020, and the automotive business accounted for 33%. ON Semiconductor’s products and technologies in the automotive field have always been in a leading position. Recently, Mr. Wu Zhimin, Director of Application Engineering of ON Semiconductor China, shared the development experience of ON Semiconductor in the field of automotive applications to the media.

Mr. Wu Zhimin, Director of Application Engineering, ON Semiconductor China

According to the forecast of professional organizations, the proportion of electric vehicles will increase in the future. By 2028, electric/hybrid vehicles (xEV) will account for more than 50% of car sales. The demand for power devices has soared.

Wu Zhimin said that most of the main drives on electric vehicles use IGBT modules. ON Semiconductor is increasing its investment in silicon carbide, because silicon carbide technology can provide more reliable and efficient main drives, which makes the modules of ON Semiconductor’s main drives very good. It is easy to expand to meet the needs of a wide range of OEM vehicle platforms.

In terms of safety, ON Semiconductor’s sensors can be applied to intelligent driving or advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), and intelligent perception and intelligent power supply can reach the highest level of safety performance of automotive safety integrity level D (ASIL D). The image sensor has the best visual effect of similar products, which can reach 100 times that of the human eye. ON Semiconductor’s market share in this area has exceeded 50%, surpassing the sum of all competitors. At present, some cars have used ON Semiconductor’s high-resolution sensors. In terms of current popular silicon carbide applications, ON Semiconductor is a one-stop supplier of substrates, epitaxy, and wafer manufacturing design. It can also provide industrial devices such as dies, components, and modules; in terms of systems, ON Semiconductor also has a lot of Strong technical and system knowledge can provide customers with global application support.

Further strengthen the leading position of silicon carbide (SiC)

In order to enhance the supply capacity of silicon carbide, ON Semiconductor completed the acquisition of Advanced Technologies (GTAT), a silicon carbide ingot company, in November 2021. GTAT was founded in 1994 and has strong silicon carbide (SiC) crystal growth technology. It has been working with ON Semiconductor for a long time. Starting in March 2020, GTAT has supplied silicon carbide ingots to ON Semiconductor.

Wu Zhimin said: Silicon carbide technology, whether it is silicon carbide MOSFET or diode, has been developed to the second generation, which reduces power loss compared to the previous generation. ON Semiconductor has pure silicon carbide products, as well as some IGBT and silicon carbide hybrid modules that are mainly used in industry. These modules are easy to install and have industry-standard packages and pins.

The best smart power solution

In terms of automotive smart power supply, ON Semiconductor has silicon carbide (SIC) and IGBT power module products for electric/hybrid (EV/HEV), as well as power management for automotive CPU, LED lighting and body electronics.

Regarding the main drive modules of automobiles, whether it is IGBT or silicon carbide, ON Semiconductor can provide directly cooled gel modules. This type of module developed earlier and is widely used in the industry. ON Semiconductor has also introduced a more cost-effective indirect cooling plastic package module.

At the same time, ON Semiconductor’s development focus has also been placed on plastic die-casting modules. The difference between die-casting module and gel module is mainly reflected in the module’s higher power density and lower stray inductance. In particular, the acceptable working temperature of silicon carbide becomes higher, and it can even reach 200°C or more. At the same cost, using die-casting modules can gain greater potential and differentiation.

ON Semiconductor has released the main drive module with double-sided indirect water cooling. The direct water-cooled module will be launched in the middle of 2023, and the double-sided direct water cooling will be launched at the end of 2023. By 2024, the water cooling effect will be optimized and the thermal resistance coefficient will be reduced by 40%. It is ON Semiconductor’s direction and plan to make the thermal resistance lower and lower, and fine-tune the package based on feedback from the market and customers.

In addition to the main drive module, ON Semiconductor’s automotive-grade devices are also very rich. A variety of discrete devices and some smaller power automotive power modules (APM) are used in on-board charging (OBC), DC-DC, or Above the electric power steering system (EPS).

ON Semiconductor also has many applications in electric vehicle charging stations, and can provide related chips and solutions for PFC, AC-DC, and DC-DC on charging stations. In this regard, ON Semiconductor also has a very experienced team of experts to provide customers with thermal and electrical simulation models, a series of reference designs, including the optimization of SiC drivers.

In terms of packaging, ON Semiconductor has iBGA, CSP, etc. to meet the different needs of customers, as well as IVEC products, which combine the sensor and lens into a very small product.

Leading Intelligent Perception Solution

In terms of intelligent perception, ON Semiconductor is an emerging leader, with dedicated chips for image sensors, ultrasonic sensors, and new products in lidar.

The first thing to mention is the image sensor. Through the acquisition of different companies, there are now more than 2,300 patents collected. In terms of microlens and CFA, it has its own factory, and more and more chips of its own will be used in the future.

ON Semiconductor also has rich experience in optics and image signal processing (ISP), and can provide customers with a lot of system assistance. In terms of image sensors, such as the high dynamic range (HDR) that customers are particularly concerned about, ON Semiconductor’s technology is super exposure, with a uniform pixel structure, unique super exposure technology, providing excellent HDR performance, and can also suppress LED Flashing. Multi-resolution series products derived from the same pixel platform reduce the cost of algorithm training.

As the first manufacturer to provide automotive-grade image imaging sensors, ON Semiconductor has more than 15 years of automotive imaging experience. More than 400 million automotive sensors are being used in vehicles. Years of in-vehicle scene data have honed high-reliability products in automobiles. It has an absolute advantage in imaging competition.

In terms of network security that everyone attaches great importance to, such as more and more cameras and many are connected to 5G or the cloud, will there be some hacker intrusions that change the image and pose a threat to driving, even when you are driving automatically? , Will it become the target of terrorists? Wait, these issues have been thought of by ON Semiconductor for you. As a member of the working group of the network security standard ISO21434, ON Semiconductor started to study this topic very early and provided the first network security solution for image sensors, which can be realized. Sensor authentication, tamper detection, and video data encryption.

LiDAR is also a field of intelligent perception. At present, many LiDAR components are suitable for avalanche photodiodes (APD). The silicon photomultiplier (SIPM) provided by ON Semiconductor has better sensing effect. Compared with APD, SIPM has better consistency. It can detect a range of 150 m in a single shot, and can reach a range of 300 m in multiple shots.

Especially its photon detection efficiency (PDE) performance, single-photon detection capability allows the system to detect objects within 300 meters distance or low visibility, such as smoke or fog environment, has a better performance. This detector technology can be used in single-pixel, linear or area array sensors. SIPM is an optical-related product. ON Semiconductor utilizes mature image sensor micro-lens manufacturing technology to optimize optical performance.

Another intelligent perception product is a dedicated chip for ultrasound. Dynamic gain and echo detection can distinguish between stationary objects, people and pets.

Each sensor has some differences. In these dedicated chips, its different characteristics can be enhanced. After a period of application, the characteristics of it can be explored to improve the security of this solution. The chip also supports many different modulation techniques, such as amplitude modulation, binary phase shift key control (BPSK), and frequency chirp.

Regarding autonomous driving and ADAS, from L1, L2 to L5, many customer applications will go in a more advanced direction, which also means that the processor required by it will become more powerful and the current will increase. ON Semiconductor has many different power solutions in this regard, including providing high-current power supplies. ON Semiconductor can cooperate with different safety levels from ASIL-B to ASIL-D according to customer requirements.

In addition to different ASIL types of power solutions, ON Semiconductor ranked first in the ultrasonic parking assist IC market and was selected for the Minerva platform. In addition, it also performed well in the application field of X By Wire wire transmission control. Nowadays, many cars have changed from traditional mechanical control to Electronic control, which will use a lot of wire transmission control. Currently, ON Semiconductor has delivered 1 billion inductive position sensors for X By Wire (wire transmission control) applications.

ON Semiconductor will build a better future with smart technology. In industry, centralized smart power technology realizes the highest energy-efficiency solar inverters, industrial power supplies and energy storage systems, bringing continuous development to these applications. In terms of intelligent perception, promote Industry 4.0, making factories, buildings and homes more intelligent. Today we are mainly talking about cars, especially silicon carbide that brings lighter and longer battery life to electric vehicles. In terms of intelligent perception technology, ON Semiconductor has launched many different perception technologies to improve the safety and travel of cars. Experience. Wu Zhimin concluded.