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Why Carmakers Can’t Transition to Newer Chips

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Re: Why Carmakers Can’t Transition to Newer Chips

#61

Post by vvanders »

echelon wrote: post #31
schiffern wrote: post #7

> “We were able to substitute alternative chips, and then write the firmware in a matter of weeks,” Musk said. “It’s not just a matter of swapping out a chip; you also have to rewrite the software.” https://www.theverge.com/2021/7/26/22595060/tesla-chip-short...

Why did car companies allow themselves to make such a strategic mistake? Shouldn't they be on a standard microcontroller architecture? Why not even use ARM, X86, etc? It'd save them money at this point. And there wouldn't be a supply risk.

There's an incentive for chip vendors to not standardize since it makes migration hard and drives vendor lock-in. The CPU cores are one part but equally important is the peripherals and external featuresets.

Re: Why Carmakers Can’t Transition to Newer Chips

#62

Post by dharmab »

baybal2 wrote: post #46
wcunning wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Window controls are safety regulated modules in modern vehicles. They detect the closing force and reverse direction off the required motor torque exceeds av threshold so that you can’t accidentally or intentionally choke someone with the windows. This feature is required by standards bodies and some regulators. Why not put those smarts in one big module, say the Body Control Module which is always huge and already g…

> Window controls are safety regulated modules in modern vehicles. They detect the closing force and reverse direction off the required motor torque exceeds av threshold so that you can’t accidentally or intentionally choke someone with the windows. This feature is required by standards bodies and some regulators. All of this is achieved with a single <$1 part, fixed torque clutch... But who in the world wants to int…

I remember watching A Faster Horse, a documentary on the Mustang. There was an interview with an accountant type at Ford who pointed out a three cent difference in part cost per car multiplied to millions of dollars at their scale. A $1 part might have given him a heart attack.

Re: Why Carmakers Can’t Transition to Newer Chips

#63

Post by AbbeSomething »

Is a part of the problem that the chips they are depending on are so trivial and small that you would end up losing more when cutting it up on a smaller process? I guess there is a limit to how many chips you could put on a single wafer even if the chip was only a single gate?

Maybe the old nodes are efficient enough for the chips they need. Then again it would make sense to update designs frequently enough to stay at nodes that have plenty of capacity, perhaps every 5 or 10 years or so?

Re: Why Carmakers Can’t Transition to Newer Chips

#64

Post by im_down_w_otp »

RealityVoid wrote: post #59
im_down_w_otp wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They actually theoretically have a thing for this already. It's called AUTOSAR (now AUTOSAR Classic). It's supposed to be a component architecture to write down the software against a framework that can be backed by different MCUs. Of course, in practice much of the underlying esoteria of any given MCU/board configuration bled up through the abstractions and/or produced custom extensions.

And AUTOSAR is a nightmare of a framework where it's nigh impossible to understand what is going on because of the crazy abstractions.

Indeed, it's a mess and the surrounding tooling ecosystem is a pile of weird Windows GUI tools of about the quality you'd expect for very expensive tools that do very little provided to a captive customer base. It's all very circa 1990s RAD-tool mania-esque still in many ways.

That said, we're working with some groups in some automotive companies who are breaking this mold rapidly.

Re: Why Carmakers Can’t Transition to Newer Chips

#65

Post by jes »

lucidguppy wrote: post #5

This feels like lack of planning. The semiconductor industry was a known entity for many years before this level of integration came to vehicles. They should have known this would happen. Ultimately the industry will have to maintain their own production for consistent silicon.

> This feels like a lack of planning.

In any complex undertaking, how can we know when enough planning has been done?

Re: Why Carmakers Can’t Transition to Newer Chips

#66

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

baybal2 wrote: post #55
dharmab wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ECUs are simpler to build than the mechanical components they replaced and do things impossible to do mechanically (given the space and weight limits of a car). Jadon Cammisa has a great series on this stuff. Here's just one episode on one topic, drive by wire throttle control: https://youtu.be/gKsCHx5NOMM

Most drive by wire systems I seen are nothing, but a simplest closed loop PIDs. It's very close to what you are taught in the "How to write a PID controller" class without much extra creativity.

Deciding how much fuel will be injected each cycle is not just a simple PID. The throttle body control may just be a basic servo (although it probably isn't) but the system controlling it is more complicated.

Re: Why Carmakers Can’t Transition to Newer Chips

#67

Post by RealityVoid »

im_down_w_otp wrote: post #64
RealityVoid wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And AUTOSAR is a nightmare of a framework where it's nigh impossible to understand what is going on because of the crazy abstractions.

Indeed, it's a mess and the surrounding tooling ecosystem is a pile of weird Windows GUI tools of about the quality you'd expect for very expensive tools that do very little provided to a captive customer base. It's all very circa 1990s RAD-tool mania-esque still in many ways. That said, we're working with some groups in some automotive companies who are breaking this mold rapidly.

Whom, if you don't mind me asking? I would.love to see stuff change in this field.

Re: Why Carmakers Can’t Transition to Newer Chips

#68

Post by nbernard »

But for the cost, couldn't (for instance) a 16nm fab produce 90nm chips?

If not, how complex would it be to "port" an existing 90nm chip, to produce a 16nm revision? Impossible, or quite easy but not cost effective? From the POV of the car companies, could such revisions be used directly, or would they need to be qualified in the same fashion as new parts?

Re: Why Carmakers Can’t Transition to Newer Chips

#69

Post by cma »

OliverJones wrote: post #23

Vehicle electronics have some real environmental challenges as well. They have to function correctly * after they've been parked outdoors in Death Valley all day. * after they've been parked at -40 degrees for a long time. * when doused with slush containing road salt. * when their wiring harnesses deteriorate after a couple of decades of hard use. * at least for a few seconds after a catastrophic crash. It takes the…

> risk-taking guts that Tesla exhibits to push new, better, electronic parts into test and production.

After their delaminationg non-automotive grade screens I'd be wary.

Their solution to it was to make the air conditioner always run in the sun when parked and promote it as a feature, wasting untold megawatt hours of electricity.

Re: Why Carmakers Can’t Transition to Newer Chips

#70

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

echelon wrote: post #31
schiffern wrote: post #7

> “We were able to substitute alternative chips, and then write the firmware in a matter of weeks,” Musk said. “It’s not just a matter of swapping out a chip; you also have to rewrite the software.” https://www.theverge.com/2021/7/26/22595060/tesla-chip-short...

Why did car companies allow themselves to make such a strategic mistake? Shouldn't they be on a standard microcontroller architecture? Why not even use ARM, X86, etc? It'd save them money at this point. And there wouldn't be a supply risk.

Those processors aren't made on high reliability processes. You don't want your ECU built with the same media processor as the infotainment system.
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