Embedded Flash microcontrollers are the main building blocks of automotive electronic control units (ECU) and are essential components for clean, safe and smart cars, used in propulsion systems, vehicle dynamics control, driver assistance and body applications.
These devices enable innovation in electrification, new E/E architectures and automated driving. However, currently, the majority of MCU families in the market are based on embedded Flash memory technology - RRAM is a next step in embedded memories that will allow further scaling to 28nm and into even smaller nodes.
The Infineon AURIX TC4x microcontroller products look to combine improved levels of performance with new trends in virtualisation, security, and networking to enable the next generation of software-defined vehicles and new E/E architectures.
TSMC and Infineon said that they had successfully created the basis for the introduction of RRAM in the automotive domain and that this will put AURIX microcontrollers on a broader technology and supply basis.
RRAM offers high disturb immunity and allows bit-wise write without the need of erase. Endurance and data retention performance are said to be comparable in terms of performance with Flash technology.
“TSMC and Infineon have a long track record of successful collaboration, including the first AURIX generation with TC2x products. We have also partnered on RRAM NVM technology for almost a decade in a range of different applications,” said Dr. Kevin Zhang, Senior Vice President of Business Development at TSMC. “Moving the TC4x to RRAM will open new opportunities in terms of shrinking MCUs into smaller nodes, and we are excited to be working with a leader like Infineon.”
“AURIX TC3x is well established as a first-choice automotive microcontroller in many applications domains. AURIX TC4x based on TSMC’s RRAM technology further expands this success with increased ASIL-D performance, artificial intelligence capabilities and the latest networking interfaces including 10Base T1S Ethernet and CAN-XL,” added Thomas Boehm, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Automotive Microcontrollers. “RRAM technology creates a significant potential for performance expansion, power consumption reduction, and cost improvement.”
