The uses and Evolution of microcontrollers in the Automobile Industry The field of microcontrollers and embedded systems is growing

each day, with advancements in consumer electronics, computers, control units, and cars to name a few. One of the most popular microcontrollers being the 8051 is in wide use today by many. Although it is very popular it is not always the one used for many different reason. In its place are different microcontrollers that have different specification and features that the 8051 may not feature. One of the leading places where embedded systems/microcontrollers are in very high demand and increasing is the automobile industry. With cars featuring more and more electronics the microcontrollers that control them have had to evolve and take on even more tasks. With the increase of complex circuits, applications, and processor needs, microcontrollers have to be able to handle increasingly more operations. Microcontrollers have to be able to communicate with the rest of the car in real-time and process many different facets of the information almost instantaneous. These facets have increased with the increase in luxury and performance of cars. Each car has each own separate need of microcontrollers, Cars are operated by the cars ECU (electronic control unit) which pass the operations to individual microcontrollers that control the tasks, ranging from brakes to headlights ,to checking safety condition and even checking other microcontrollers to make sure they are still operating as needed. Each system has to be individually mapped to the car it will be inserted in. In a typical Ford vehicle the number of ECU ranges from 25 to 35 but in a more high-end luxury car like a BMW that number increases to 6065. These numbers grow even more the higher up luxury car ladder you climb. This paper will talk about the design consideration when designing a automotive embedded system, the implementation of a microcontroller to monitor the tire pressure and where the future of microcontrollers in cars my very well lead us, with automated cars of the future.

Many aspects of microcontrollers must be considered when implementing them into a specific car. Embedding microcontrollers into the architecture of a vehicle, has an effect on cost, For instance the cost of semiconductors to make them, plays a big part in the cost. Another aspect is the safety of the driver. Most of these safety precautions are in place for the reliability of the microcontrollers placed into automobiles. They must be able to accommodate many functions and be very reliable for the life of that automobile. Most common faults are usually separated into two groups: hardware faults and software faults. As mentioned earlier one of the most important tasks a microcontroller has is too able to communicate with others systems. This is called multiplexing and uses a common bus to relay messages back and forth with other networks to do functions. This was first developed in the 1980's by Robert Bosch a German engineer and is called controller area network (CAN). Since then they have evolved into much more which is what automobiles these days have in the. To increase the reliability of the CAN many times a back up microcontroller will be implemented to take over a certain task if the main one ever fails or experiences a fault. All microcontrollers require a central processor unit, memory, random-access memory, and inputs and outputs. Our automobile microcontrollers have said increased from 8-bit architecture to a 32-bit architecture commonly referred to as the Harvard architecture. Foremost among the resources at the disposal of the CPU are a number of registers. The CPU used registers to store information temporarily. The information could be two values to be processed, or the address of the value needed to be fetched from memory. Registers inside the CPU can be 8-bit,16-bit,32-bit, or even 64-bit registers, depending on the CPU (Mazidi, Mazidi, and Rolin 14-15). With the need of many processes to be calculated every second the processing clock speed is usually between 40-60 MHz per second. The standard as of 2009 was an operating voltage around 3.3 volts, with a output current around 20mA. As the

speed and power increase the need for smaller microcontrollers has also increased. One such example is the TI Piccolo developed by Texas Instruments. It takes up 19 x19 mm area and cranes 80 I/O onto the board. The market for microcontrollers in the automotive industry is expected to reach 5.5 billion in 2014. A considerable amount of money is going to optimizing and going "green". The electrical system of vehicles built today, has increased to 20% of the overall vehicle cost and is expected to keep increasing by 16% a year. While introducing more and more micro Microcontrollers are a big part of your vehicle and control more aspects of your car than the actual driver. One over looked area, are the tires, in particular the tire pressure, there is a micro controller that monitors the tire pressure and based on the reading, communicates with other micro controllers to help the driver out. The tire pressure monitoring system is made up of a low dropout voltage linear buck regulator (LDO), an A/D controller, and a DW8051 microcontroller. The LDO gets a operating voltage can range from 2.7-5.5 volts depending on the need, so it has compatibility with many different voltages. The LDO measure the pressure with its wide range of voltage levels then send the controller signal. The LDO outputs a 1.8 volt output, to the control unit, in this case the A/D controller. Dependant on the signal the A/D controller converts the signal into bits that the 8051 receives. The 8051 receives this input and dependant on this communicates with the cars central processing unit for a notification to be sent ot the driver. This chip is very small to be able to fit in the tire gauge measuring in at 3.5x3.5 mm^2 in total. The sensor needs to be reliable and consume very little power. The DW8051 needs to communicate with other digital systems on board very quickly. The 8051 is given an internal ram and connected with bus lines to the A/D control module. The program begins and the A/D control module gives EN signals to the rest of the system. The signals are 8-bit data that

are stored in the A/D control module, and then transferred to the transmitters to the rest of the system. The startup of this microcontroller only takes 6 micro seconds with the power being received in 1 micro second. This is all accomplished on a single chip. With microcontrollers becoming smaller and fitting more on them, it's no wonder cars are becoming to implement more and more of them to do everyday tasks for the driver. In 2001 BMW introduced there revolutionary iDrive system in there luxury sports cars, though the system started off rough and gained no favor with critics. Though in 2004 they have gotten the system in to a well oiled machine thanks to the help of some microcontrollers. Designer Michael Wurtenberger set out to eliminate switches in buttons in the car to a single rotating selector knob, with the help of a user interface. The iDrive system has two parts, a screen on the dashboard and a dial that allows the driver to access many factors of their car. The overall system is produced by ALPS Electric designing the decoder, belt drive, and motor that implements the mechanical portion of the system. BMW used to used a communication system called ARCNET inside there vehicles, but with the advancement of microcontrollers and automobile electronics there system soon became outdated. The iDrive system is powered by four microcontrollers, each with a separate task. The main controller is responsible for the navigation/ interface of the system. The others are for sound, graphics and for communications and security. The main chip is produced by Renasas Technology formerly Hitachi, the processor is 430-MIPS clocked at 240MHz SH775x and the companion controllers are HD64404. The chips have 2d and 3d graphics engines and support a wide range of peripherals. They're all connected with a control-area-network (CAN), to a vehicles other control unit a 16-bit Freelink microcontroller. Car manufactures are looking for a faster network to connect microcontrollers, such as BMW, Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors. A concept is Flexray that will increase

bandwidth in the networks based in vehicles. CAN's have a bus speed of 1 Mbit/sec Flexray will have tow parallel channels at 10 Mbit/sec using the same medium as the CAN uses, twisted pair cable. The Flexray will use a ARM9 based programmable logic device, with a RS485 bus controller. Also the Flexray supports asynchronous and synchronous transmission and even a combination of the two. With this setup in the BMW's iDrive more car manufactures are implementing a single chip process that allows for less power consumption and faster integrated bus speeds. With the improvement of microcontrollers vehicles are becoming more advanced and allowing for even more features that was never even thought of before. The advancement in microcontrollers over the years have allowed for greater technological advancement and greater optimization of current technologies. With the automobile market for microcontrollers and embedded systems increasing every year, the use of microcontrollers is not going to slow any time soon. They help turn cars into more reliable and safe vehicles with all the aspects of the car being monitored and safety precautions being made without the drivers knowledge. The use of microcontrollers in overlooked areas of a car like the tire pressure monitoring system, are one of the many things that keep cars running longer and the drivers safe. With automobile manufacturing using microcontrollers in more luxury and entertainment parts of the car, like the BMW iDrive system, the uses of microcontrollers will continue to evolve to better suit the car and the driver allowing customization of the car at a fingertouch.

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