Silicon Mobility introduces single chip solution for highly integrated powertrain domain control and energy management
12 June 2024
Silicon Mobility, an Intel company and a provider of automotive semiconductor and software control solutions, announced the OLEA U310 Field Programmable Control Unit (FPCU) as part of its next generation of OLEA FPCU Series.
The new OLEA U310 consolidates the functionalities of multiple traditional microcontrollers into a single system on chip (SoC), leading to benefits for electric vehicle (EV) manufacturers and consumers alike. A first for the industry, it replaces up to six separate microcontrollers while simultaneously delivering real-time control of multiple and diverse power and energy functions and guaranteeing maximum safety integrity and future- proofed cybersecurity.
Yhe OLEA U310 chip simplifies complex system design by replacing up to 6 microcontrollers and efficiently controlling multiple functions in parallel, including inverters, motors, gearboxes, DC-DC, OBC, Auxiliary Functions and more.
The design allows original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to break free from the conventions of EV domain controls and move to a highly integrated X-in-1 powertrain that delivers unmatched system performance. It will help to make EVs more energy efficient, lighter and ultimately more cost-effective, to accelerate their adoption on a global scale, the company said.
The rise of electric vehicles is triggering a profound shift in the automotive industry. The traditional embedded electric architecture is being reinvented to support a software-driven approach. This “software- defined vehicle” concept promises a more sustainable model for car development and a constantly updatable and evolving user experience. However, it requires powerful computational and control solutions that seamlessly integrate hardware and software.
The OLEA U310 is specifically engineered to match the need for powertrain domain control in electrical architectures with distributed software. Built with a unique hybrid and heterogenous architecture it surpasses the capabilities of traditional microcontrollers.
Up to 6 standard microcontrollers can be replaced by a single OLEA U310 in a system combination where the FPCU is controlling in parallel an inverter, a motor, a gearbox, a DC-DC converter and an on-board-charger. The SoC embeds multiple software and hardware programmable processing and control units while seamlessly integrating functional safety and cybersecurity into its core design. This allows OEMs to run multiple time-based applications while simultaneously executing multiple event-based control functions.
OEMs and automotive tier 1s can design several variants of system integration with OLEA U310 including a combination of the following functions: traction inverter and electric motor control with gearbox, DC-DC converter control, power factor converter control, on board charger, air compressor for fuel cell, battery management system, thermal management system with high-voltage e-compressor control, and more.
The OLEA U310 is a three Cortex-R52 cores controller chip which leverage its strength from three unique technologies:
AxEC 2.0: The Advanced execution and Events Control is a data processing and real-time control unit based on programmable hardware and configurable peripherals supporting multiple parallel applications thanks to multi-Flexible Logic Units (FLU) clusters.
SILant 2.0: The Safety Integrity Level agent is a set of units and functionalities dedicated to the FPCU and the system functional safety ensuring ISO 26262 ASIL-D compliancy. This new generation has a deterministic multi-core and multi-FLU cluster which guarantees worst-case execution timing.
FHSM: The Flexible Hardware Security Module is a sub-system dedicated to the cybersecurity of the FPCU integrating encryption/decryption accelerators and is compliant to EVITA Full and ISO 21434. It is combined with a hardware programmable cluster to support unidentified threats and strengthen security.
Silicon Mobility says it is the only provider to offer a complete solution combining hardware and software. Leveraging its strength in control software, the future roadmap will include advanced algorithms to address model predictive control with optimized pulse pattern modulation, combined with real-time and local neuronal network acceleration or variable voltage inverter/motor control.
The OLEA U310 delivers unparalleled real-time processing enabling the implementation of the most demanding and time constrained control algorithms for maximum efficiency in energy saving. It can control up to 4 traction inverters and their motor in parallel at an impressive speed of 1000 kHz field-oriented control loop with high PWM precision of hundreds of picoseconds. The beneficial impacts on the system are multiple. In addition to the BoM reduction, early figures show up to 5% energy efficiency improvement, 25% motor downsizing for the same power, 35% less cooling need and up to 30 times passive component downsizing.
The OLEA U310 is equipped with a complete software suite from Silicon Mobility to enable the development of concurrent control algorithms for automotive power and energy application control.
OLEA U310 is available today to selective customers.
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