Moderation Team
Infineon’s automotive division president, Peter Schiefer, says the German chipmaker expects to gain from the move to add radar sensors and camera modules to cars to give them so-called Level 2-plus autonomy. He discussed this and more with Automotive News Europe Correspondent Olive Keogh.
What are your main challenges?
Preparing the technologies and manufacturing capacity required for electrified, automated, secure connected driving. Currently, the automotive market is weak and also hard to predict due to general economic and political uncertainty. Therefore, the biggest challenge is predicting the market cycle and adjusting to it. The good news for us is that even if the number of cars sold stagnates, the electronic content will continue to increase because there are several structural growth drivers. The biggest of these are electrification and automated cars.
Who are Infineon’s customers?
Typically, they are Tier 1 companies developing the electronics systems sold to automakers. But we often have the opportunity to talk directly with automakers so that we understand future technology trends very early on.
What is the value of the semiconductor content in the average family car?
About $355 (322 euros). This excludes the combustion engine. If you include a classical combustion engine this adds another $62. If it’s a so-called mild hybrid you add another $114, which puts the semiconductor value up to about $530. In a full hybrid or plug-in hybrid, with their bigger electric motors, the semiconductor content is much higher, a total of $785. It is about $775 for a battery-electric car.
How widespread are Infineon technologies in hybrid and full-electric cars?
We are the market leader in electrifying cars. In 2018, 15 out of the top 20 biggest selling plug-in hybrid and electric cars used our power technology and products. In automated driving, we are very strong in radar technology and two out of three 77 GHz (gigahertz) radar sensor chips sold come from Infineon.
Infineon is very active in cybersecurity. How real is the hacking threat?
The connected car of the future will become a comprehensive mobile device in the IoT (internet of things) environment. This means cars become attractive as a business case for cyberattacks. Cybersecurity is a must have with digital mobility. It creates and builds trust for the customer.
Will quantum computing make hacking easier or more likely?
Quantum computing has much more processing bandwidth and we need to assume that in the future this technology will enable much more powerful attacks. Therefore, Infineon is working on new cryptographic algorithms and their implementation on embedded devices with limited processing power.
What’s your timeline on the roll out of autonomous cars?
Our forecast that there will be 4 million cars at (SAE) Level 4 or 5 automated driving in 2030 has not changed because we started with a more conservative approach. When it comes to Level 2 and 3, we have a slightly different perspective now. We had thought that by 2025 there would be about 3 million Level 3 cars sold but given the complexity we have reduced that to 1.5 million by 2025. On the other hand, we see an additional trend emerging that we call Level 2 plus. At this level, it is all about adding more radar sensors and camera modules including their respective data processing power. This is a big opportunity for us,
Source: europe.autonews.com
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