Power data-intensive intelligent driving assistance, automatic braking and driving warning systems

February 25, 2021, Shanghai, China — Micron Technology Inc., a leading supplier of memory and storage solutions, announced today that it has begun sampling the industry’s first automotive use Low-power DDR5 DRAM (LPDDR5) memory. The memory has undergone hardware evaluation and meets the highest level of automotive safety integrity level (ASIL) standards, namely ASIL D. In addition, Micron has a series of new memory and storage products that comply with the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 26262 standard for automotive safety.

This LPDDR5 DRAM has passed the functional safety assessment and can be used in advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) technology, including adaptive cruise control, automatic emergency braking, lane departure warning system, and blind spot detection system [1]. It has the characteristics of high performance, low power consumption and low latency at the same time, which provides performance guarantee and development space to meet the increasing bandwidth requirements of next-generation automotive systems.

Kris Baxter, Corporate Vice President and General Manager of Micron’s Embedded Products Division, said: “Autonomous driving can make our roads safer, but autonomous driving technology requires powerful and reliable memory to make real-time decisions in extreme environments. In order to meet the growing market demand, we have optimized LPDDR5 for vehicles to provide superior performance, quality and reliability for future smart and safe vehicles."

As electronic components become necessary components to ensure driving safety, automakers must follow strict functional safety standards to ensure that safety mechanisms can mitigate risks in the event of a car breakdown. Micron is well aware of the increasing importance of functional safety, and has set up a special department within the company to work closely with customers according to the memory requirements of automotive safety system design. To help customers fulfill complex compliance obligations, the department led the LPDDR5 listing within Micron, accompanied by safety application notes, and published the industry's first DRAM hardware evaluation report provided by a supplier. Micron's hardware evaluation report has also been independently evaluated and verified by exida, a well-known professional company in the automotive safety field. By conducting this rigorous evaluation within the company, Micron aims to help customers in the automotive field simplify system design and accelerate their product launches.

Alexander Griessing, chief operating officer and chief safety expert of exida, said: "Functional safety is a vital part of the development process of advanced automotive systems, but so far, memory has been ignored to some extent and has only been regarded as a kind of Ready-to-buy products. Micron launched the industry-leading automotive LPDDR5, which accurately meets the ISO 26262 standard, setting a new benchmark for the memory industry. Increasing attention to functional safety will benefit all parties, including car manufacturers and advanced , Consumers of safe vehicles."

Micron's low-power memory promotes automotive innovation and green travel

With the increasing popularity of ADAS and autonomous driving technology applications, data collection and efficient processing capabilities are gradually becoming the key to automotive innovation. Gartner predicts that the market size of automotive memory will double from USD 2.4 billion in 2020 to USD 6.3 billion in 2024[2]. With the rise of data-intensive automotive technology, today, ADAS-equipped vehicles run more than 100 million lines of code, requiring up to hundreds of billions of data processing per second, which can rival data centers. LPDDR5 can increase data access speed by 50% and energy efficiency by more than 20% [3], thus effectively responding to these needs. This enables smart cars to process and make decisions about data from multiple sensors and data sources, such as radar, lidar, high-resolution imaging, 5G networks, and optical image recognition in near real time.

The high energy efficiency of LPDDR5 can help realize the high-performance computing of automobiles, and at the same time greatly reduce the energy consumption of electric vehicles and traditional cars, so as to realize more environmentally friendly transportation and reduce exhaust emissions. Micron's automotive LPDDR5 has also enhanced robustness, can be used in extreme temperature ranges, and meets a variety of automotive reliability standards, including the AEC-Q100 specification of the American Automotive Electronics Association and the IATF 16949 standard of the International Automotive Working Group.

The unique DRAM that has passed the functional safety assessment accelerates the launch of smart and safe vehicles

Micron LPDDR5 comes with detailed functional safety documentation, which can help customers conduct comprehensive safety analysis during system configuration. Micron provides hardware evaluation reports that strictly follow the ISO 26262 standard [4] to verify extensive functional safety analysis. In order to meet higher security requirements, LPDDR5 contains robust security mechanisms that can detect and control memory errors during operation. System integrators can also choose to deploy more mechanisms to further reduce risks.

With high-quality memory and storage solutions, Micron has served the automotive market for 30 years and is widely favored by leading automakers, with a cumulative mileage of trillions of miles [5]. Micron's deep expertise stems from close collaboration with customers in the automotive field to integrate memory design into the system architecture to support ADAS, in-vehicle infotainment systems, digital cockpits, and machine learning. Micron is the number one memory supplier in the automotive industry.

Resources

> Product page: Automotive functional safety
> Blog: Building Security in Automotive Chips-Micron Leading the Way

Source: http://www.micron.com/