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HOW MANY CHIPS ARE IN OUR CARS?

On January 29, 1886, German mechanical engineer, Carl Benz, applied for a patent for his invention, a vehicle powered by a gas engine, becoming the first of many automobiles this civilization was fated to innovate. The Benz patented three-wheeled motor car with a single cylinder and topped at a measly 10 miles per hour became the blueprint for further developments that led to the modern automobiles the world enjoys today. Get more news about Original New Automotive Grade Chip,you can vist our website!

The future for the automotive sector is looking very bright indeed as more and more parts of vehicles are now electronically controlled or monitored. Today, modern-day cars sport many features like all-wheel drives, navigation tools and sensors, in-car entertainment, braking systems, and even self-driving capabilities. Qualcomm’s quest to digitally transform the automobile during CES 2022 earlier this year is any indication.

Electronic Control Unit modules in the modern car

Of course, as vehicles start to shift towards being smarter and away from internal combustion, the number of electronics in a car will inevitably grow. How many chips are in our vehicles?

Estimates say that there are roughly around 1,000+ chips in a non-electric vehicle and twice as much in an electric one. Imagine a PC or a mobile phone. The chips in those devices are significantly less than in a car.

Why the need for all those chips?

A modern car uses several electronic modules that control various features that an automobile may have. Simply put, a car today cannot run without any microchips. While car manufacturers work with chip makers like Qualcomm to develop more innovations to bring about the digital chassis, the number of chips needed will surely increase.

To control, monitor, and manage the myriad of systems in a car, manufacturers spend a lot of engineering development in the ECUs or Electronic Control Units. These ECUs comprise a mini-computer meant to control a very specific function in a car and usually has their dedicated chip that runs its software or firmware. These mini systems receive inputs from various parts of a vehicle, depending on its overall function, through the use of various types of sensors, actuators, and switches. These are powered up and sometimes may require data connections to function correctly.

Of course, these are simply a top view of the electronics inside an average vehicle today. Each ECU module will house several chips and an average car will probably have close to 100 individual modules, all of which need to be wired up appropriately. This means inter modular data processing will be more efficient if done separately rather than controlled by a single processor. Pair this with the migration toward Electric Vehicles (EV), and the number of chips in a car easily doubles, not to mention the rise of smarter cars.
1. Safety, Security, and Access

There are several ECUs dedicated to safety alone. Considering that lives are at stake should any of these features fail to kick in when needed, precision and reliability are a must for any automotive ECU, even more so for safety features.

These modules control airbags, parking assistance, collision avoidance, power locks, breaking assistance, tire pressure monitoring, and traction control. An ECU dedicated to collision avoidance, for example, would monitor the proximity around the car to warn the driver and help avoid or significantly reduce the risk that comes with a collision, especially vital in self-driving cars. The ECU dedicated to airbags will facilitate the deployment once a crash is detected. The precise deployment timing could spell either life or death for the passenger.

ECUs for security and access include door locks, keyless entry, and alarm systems, to name a few, which are also dedicated to securing the vehicle and the passengers inside. Keyless ignition features are already starting to replace the regular car key fobs, and this comes with an ECU dedicated to facilitating this function.

2. Powertrain and Electrical Systems

To keep the car running at optimum levels, many systems are in place to control and monitor the powertrain and electrical systems, such as the engine, fuel injection systems, hybrid-electric control, transmission control, start, lighting systems, and vehicular diagnostic systems. These systems are vital in ensuring a vehicle can function safely and consistently. An electric car will inherently have a different powertrain system than an internal combustion engine. One that is simpler but still requires an ECU for monitoring and control. Electrical ECU modules in this category are responsible for distributing power to all the other modules within the vehicle. Think of these as the vehicle’s cardiovascular system, one that pumps blood and distributes it throughout the rest of the body.