Germany backs Infineon ECU research with $6.2 million

LONDON - Audi, Continental, Infineon Technologies and ZMD are being supported by the German government in their efforts to research ways to improve the analytic and diagnostic capability of electronic control units (ECUs) in automobiles.

The four companies have teamed up in a research project called Diana. Diana is a German acronym that stands for a phrase that translates as "end-to-end diagnostic capabilities in semiconductor components and systems for analyzing persistent and sporadic errors in automobiles."

The project is to receive roughly 4.8 million euro (about $6.2 million) in support from Germany’s Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) as part of the government’s high-tech strategy and Information and Communications Technology 2020 program (IKT 2020). Automobiles and mobility have been defined as two of the key focuses of IKT 2020 with the aim of significantly improving the robustness of automotive electronics.

From now until 2013 the four partners, headed by Infineon, will work on ways to make error detection more precise and faults easier to rectify for automakers and repair shops. The project partners will be assisted by several research organizations and universities based in Germany: the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits in Dresden, the University of the Federal Armed Forces in Munich, and the Universities of Cottbus, Erlangen-Nuremberg, and Stuttgart.

To achieve project goals, the same quality control measures that are currently employed in the semiconductor industry will be applied to the automobile as a system. This will enable relevant information on possible malfunctions occurring during operation to be retrieved directly from the semiconductor components and reported to higher-level system components in an electronic control unit. The ECU can then process the operating data collected for diagnostic purposes to inform the driver on the status of the vehicle and provide mechanics in repair shops with a detailed diagnostic report. This kind of end-to-end diagnostic capability, which has not been implemented in cars as yet, will require close collaboration along the entire automotive-industry value chain, from semiconductor manufacturers to the suppliers of electronic control systems and automobile makers.

The outcomes of the Diana are not set to be included in automotive electronics products before 2015. Thereafter should ensure that cars are more reliable, require fewer trips to the repair shop, and can be repaired more efficiently. The end-to-end approach to diagnostics can also be employed in other applications where safety is critical, said Infineon, in other transportation systems such as trains or aircraft, or in medical engineering.