"Electronic circuits in an automotive environment"

- Herman Casier, Consultant

Many electronic circuits in an automotive environment are mixed-signal ASIC systems and are subject to the classical chip design difficulties and trade-offs such as PVT variations, analog/digital interference, power/accuracy interference, power/signal integrity verification ... As for every chip design, cost, quality and Time-To-Market are also important design project considerations.
The electronics-hostile environment of the car however, pushes several of the mentioned classical design challenges and project considerations to unusual extremes and provokes additional difficulties in the development of a mixed-signal automotive ASIC chip. This tutorial provides an overview of automotive-specific requirements and their impact on circuit design.
Topics, which will be discussed are: limitations of the car-battery as power supply, high operational temperature in the car, high reliability and safety considerations for automotive systems, automotive high energy transients (Load dump, ISO 7637 pulses), electrostatic and electromagnetic interferences (emission and immunity). Several practical design examples will be given for the discussed topics.