Autonomous Driving Use Case

USE CASE

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MPS has developed a series of products for autonomous driving, including the MPQ2967-AEC1, MPQ86960, MPQ79500FS-AEC1, and MPQ79700FS-AEC1 to meet the increasingly complicated specifications of the autonomous driving system and fully achieve a hands-free driving experience.

Figure 1: Driving Automation Levels Issued by SAE J3016^TM

Autonomous Driving Market

The demand for autonomous vehicles continues to grow rapidly. In the U.S., the number of autonomous vehicles on the road is expected to increase from approximately 2.1 million to 20.8 million between 2025 and 2030.

Intelligence is one of the core functionalities of emerging electric vehicles (EVs) and marks an important transition for the automotive industry. In particular, autonomous driving has become a standard function of EVs. As the automotive industry increasingly shifts its focus toward autonomous driving, designers must face key challenges with autonomous driving technology.

In response to the growing trend of autonomous driving, MPS has launched a selection of automotive-grade chips for the two core modules of the DCU and sensor in the autonomous driving system. MPS’s complete power supply solutions enables automotive manufacturers to develop autonomous vehicles that drive smoothly on the road.

Challenges of Autonomous Driving

With the ongoing improvement of autonomous driving functions, the main chip’s computing power and the system’s power demand continues to increase. As a result, the power supply design is facing higher requirements. Designers of autonomous driving systems must also address issues with complex systems, reliability, and the tradeoff between volume and cost.

Complex Systems

The development of autonomous driving technology and sophisticated applications has increased the requirements for the main chip’s computing power and information processing capabilities, leading to uncertainty about being able to meet computing power requirements. In addition, the data transmitted by peripheral sensors to the vehicle’s DCU for processing has increased significantly. As major manufacturers begin developing large computing chips, an estimated 1000T computing power automotive chips are expected to be available by 2025.

Greater computational power and richer intelligent driving scenarios entail higher power consumption and more complex system solutions. As a result, designers must integrate higher requirements in the overall power design, including timing management, functional safety monitoring, multi-phase power supply, and other functions.

Assuring Reliability

As the core component of the vehicle, the automotive chip’s reliability directly determines the safety and stability of the vehicle on the road. This also impacts the safety of the driver and passengers in the vehicle. In recent years, traffic accidents and casualties related to autonomous driving have occurred frequently around the world, underlining the importance of safety.

Therefore, the reliability of automotive-grade chips is held at a significantly higher standard than the reliability of general consumer-grade chips.

Volume and Cost Tradeoff

With the continuous improvement of autonomous driving systems, onboard chip solutions are becoming increasingly complex. As manufacturers further increase the number of cameras in the sensor module as well as resolution, the demand for small-size, high-integration, and cost-effective power supply solutions is growing.

Designing a Complete Autonomous Driving Solution

In view of the many challenges with autonomous driving design, MPS offers a variety of products for complex autonomous domain controller products. Figure 2 shows the main chip core power supply, which is comprised of the MPQ2967-AEC1 and MPQ86960.

Figure 2: Autonomous Driving SoC Solutions with the MPQ2967 and MPQ86960

The combined solution with the MPQ2967-AEC1 and MPQ86960 is designed for the core power supply of the autonomous DCU, which is used for high-computing power and high-current main chips.

The MPQ2967-AEC1 is a two-rail, digital, multi-phase controller for autonomous driving applications, which can be configured for up to four phases of two-rail operation. The MPQ86960 is a monolithic half-bridge with built-in power MOSFETs and gate drivers. It can achieve up to 50A of continuous output current (I_OUT) across a wide input voltage (V_IN) range.

The solution with the MPQ2967-AEC1 and MPQ86960 also integrates timing management, functional safety monitoring, current sampling, temperature sampling, and other functions. At the same time, the system-on-chip (SoC) core power supply includes the integrated, intelligent, half-bridge Intelli-Phase^TM (DrMOS), which uses constant on-time (COT) control to achieve a simplified external BOM. This results in the capability to respond quickly to load transients with a small number of output capacitors, significantly simplifying the design, and is ideal for autonomous driving power supply solutions.

Functional Safety System Solutions

An automatic driving system is expansive, including many peripherals, I/O ports, and other components that require power supplies in addition to the main chip core. These power supplies typically use independent, small power supplies that cannot meet the power sequencing and functional safety design requirements on their own. To address this issue, MPS offers the MPQ79500FS-AEC1 and MPQ79700FS-AEC1 as functional safety system designs that can support a high automotive safety integrity level up to ASIL-D, helping complex systems easily implement functional safety system design.

The MPQ79500FS-AEC1 is a 6-channel voltage monitor designed for automotive safety applications. Each channel can be configured with an over-voltage (OV) and under-voltage (UV) threshold. The device is also integrated with safety mechanisms such as built-in self-testing (BIST) and diagnostic and write protection to meet ASIL-D application requirements (see Figure 3).

Figure 3: MPQ79500FS-AEC1 Typical Application Circuit

The MPQ79700FS-AEC1 is a 12-channel functional safety power sequencer that provides configurability and flexibility to support cross-generational design multiplexing different applications and SoCs. It integrates BIST and other safety mechanisms to achieve high diagnostic coverage and achieve target ASIL levels (see Figure 4).

Figure 4: MPQ79700FS-AEC1 Typical Application Circuit

Checking the Process to Improve Reliability

Drawing from MPS’s extensive experience in the production of automotive-grade chips, MPS can also check the entire process from design to testing to maximize chip reliability. From the design stage, the chip must meet the AEC-Q100 automotive-grade standard. In the mass production stage, MPS uses comprehensive full-temperature testing technology to optimize the reliability of automotive-grade chips in full-temperature environments. MPS aims to approach a 0DPPM goal and improve the safety and reliability of end-user products.

Conclusion

At present, autonomous driving is in the stage of rapid development with major automotive manufacturers moving toward the goal of L5 autonomous driving. MPS has developed a series of products for autonomous driving, including the MPQ2967-AEC1, MPQ86960, MPQ79500FS-AEC1, and MPQ79700FS-AEC1 to meet the increasingly complicated specifications of the autonomous driving system and fully achieve a hands-free driving experience.

For more details, explore MPS’s robust selection of automotive power solutions.