4 pillars of NXP’s future of cars: Sense, think, connect & act

We caught up with Sanjay Gupta, NXP India Head, Vice President and India Managing Director. He talked about the changes taking place in the semiconductor industry as a result of the pandemic, the rise of wearables, robotics, the automotive chip and their vision for the future of autonomous vehicles. Some excerpts from the video interview…

Explaining NXP’s four pillars of autonomous vehicles…

Our eyes and ears have been replaced with sensors like Radar (radio detection and ranging), camera and Lidar (laser imaging, detection, and ranging). The electronics equivalent of human thinking is intelligent machines or Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and advanced compute capabilities. These cars not only sense the high-speed data that is streaming in, but they can also process and predict with it.

After “sense” and “think”, the third thing they can do is “connect”. This comes through high-end connectivity technologies. Inside a car we have Bluetooth. From outside we have Ultra-Wide Band. We have DSRC or Dedicated Short Range Communication, just like the Wi-Fi of a car. Car to car communication can happen in a seamless way. 5G integration trials are also there and can link with the cloud.

The fourth thing is “act” using the latest battery management system, using the latest electronic gadgets to act in a smart way and optimize fuel usage. These four pillars bank on a foundation of safety and security.

This same framework can apply to robotics too.

The range of automotive chips…

Automotive chips are expected to work whether you are in the Sahara Desert or if you are in the extremely cold temperature ranges like Antarctica. They are extremely robust. That’s why the skills, the competencies and the experience that is required to build an automotive chip is very different from a mobile chip.

Chip usage spike due to Covid…

Semiconductors have been integrated in every sphere of life, which we never realized a few years back. The pandemic has only expedited the usage of semiconductors. Digitilazation in our economy and in our way of life was always happening at an organic pace, but the pandemic expedited that by at least 10x.

Check out the complete interview...