NXP on route to automotive future

SAN FRANCISCO--The car is the next frontier in consumer electronics, going from mode of transportation to personalized mobile information hub.

NXP has made automotive a priority, striving to enable all electronic communication
to, from and within the vehicle ¬ reliably, securely, and efficiently.

Speaking to NXP executive vice president Kurt Sievers at CES 2013, EE Times learned more about the firm’s plans for the burgeoning automotive space, from IC solutions for telematics, 802.11p automotive wireless, magnetoresistive sensors, small-signal discretes, solid state lighting drivers and NFC applications.

The push comes under NXP’s vision of “secure connections for a smarter world,” a world in which cars will be able to “talk” to people, and to each other, giving warnings to other vehicles and interacting seamlessly with infrastructure like traffic lights.

Sievers said he was proud to be showing off NXP’s automotive products in Nevada, a state that was the first to allow autonomous vehicles and a testing ground for Google’s self-driving car. “NXP is one of the companies enabling the progress,” said Sievers.

While it’s clear that automated driving won’t take over our main roads fully for a long time to come, Sievers said studies had shown that a penetration of just 15-20 percent of cars with those features would be enough to make the road a significantly safer place.

Also, for those concerned that connected cars could be hacked, Sievers said NXP was putting a lot of effort into securing them with the same crypto-technology already used in payment cards and passports.