In connected car news are T-Mobile, VinFast, Ansys, Hyundai and IonQ.
T-Mobile to Connect VinFast Vehicles
T-Mobile (NASDAQ: TMUS) and VinFast announced an agreement for the Un-carrier to be the exclusive provider of connectivity for VinFast’s smart electric vehicles in North America and Europe. This long-term, multi-million-dollar deal will deliver more personalized in-car experiences and the ability to leverage near real-time telemetry data for more informed and timely maintenance and service decisions.
Under the agreement, T-Mobile will provide connectivity for VinFast’s electric vehicles in North America and Europe, including the VF 6, VF 7, VF 8 and VF 9. These vehicles will come with built-in capabilities that power connected services such as remote vehicle services; streaming media and gaming on-the-go; safety features, including live traffic information; Wi-Fi hotspot data on select models, to help passengers stay connected; as well as over the air firmware and software updates.
Additionally, by leveraging T-Mobile’s IoT platform, VinFast will connect and manage the service and maintenance of millions of new electric vehicles worldwide, based on near real-time data, performance monitoring and remote notifications. VinFast is committed to interacting with its customers through its corporate-owned and operated stores, several of which will include parts and service centers that will be set up to manage these needs.
Ansys GF Certification
Ansys (NASDAQ: ANSS) announced that GF has certified Ansys® RedHawk-SC™, Ansys® RaptorH™ and Ansys® HFSS™ semiconductor tools for its flagship 22FDX platform. The GF certification enables chip designers to reduce costs by eliminating wasteful safety margins and improving system performance, without compromising reliability or risking unexpected and damaging interactions between design elements.
GF’s 22FDX platform is a popular choice for Internet of Things (IoT), smart mobile, and automotive markets, and GF’s certification ensures that Ansys tools provide unparalleled predictive accuracy in verifying the correct functioning of ultra-low power, high-speed and radio frequency (RF) designs.
RedHawk-SC uses sophisticated, proprietary algorithms to verify a chip’s power supply integrity and electromigration reliability for both digital designs and analog designs. RaptorH and HFSS analyze electromagnetic coupling to verify high-speed performance. The Ansys tools were certified by GF to provide predictively accurate results for 22FDX following extensive testing on a broad array of test cases and real-life design examples.
“The certification of Ansys’ Redhawk-SC, RaptorH and HFSS products enables our joint customers to use these popular signoff tools with full confidence in their predictive accuracy,” said Richard Trihy, vice president of Design and Technology Enablement at GF. “Through our collaboration with Ansys, customers can push the boundaries of ultra-low power design and feature integration of our unique 22FDX platform.”
“Ansys is committed to staying on the forefront of process technology development and supporting our foundry partners, as well as our customers, in their choice of optimal silicon technology,” said John Lee, vice president and general manager of the electronics, semiconductor and optics business unit at Ansys. “Our latest certification reflects the importance our ongoing relationship with GF and enables us to provide our customers with the support they need throughout the design process.”
Diodes Inc. USB C
Diodes Incorporated (Diodes) (Nasdaq: DIOD) is targeting growing opportunities in USB Type-C® technology, and lower power operation needs, with two new bit-level retimers. The DIODES™ PI2DPT1021 and PI2DPT821 devices are for use in laptop and desktop PCs, as well as docking stations, computer peripherals, game consoles, and active cables. They provide a compelling combination of industry-leading power efficiency in line with modern CPU platforms, compact form factors, and advanced functionality.
The new retimers each feature receiver adaptive equalization, which means that both long trace and short trace applications can be addressed. This function enables channel loss compensation up to -23dB for signal transmissions at 5GHz speeds and -18dB for 4.05GHz speeds plus jitter cleaning, without the need for a local reference clock.
The PI2DPT1021 supports 10Gbps USB3.2 Gen2 and DisplayPort™ (DP) version 1.4, while the PI2DPT821 supports 8.1Gbps DP1.4 and USB3.2 Gen1 protocols. A bidirectional, high-speed channel is incorporated into each device, which allows the flow from downstream facing ports (DFP) and upstream facing ports (UFP) to be swapped. As a result, engineers have greater layout flexibility when it comes to signal flow direction. In particular, thanks to their bidirectional operation, the PI2DPT1021 and PI2DPT821 are suitable for active cable implementations since both of their end connectors are the same and can act as either a DFP or UFP accordingly.
Other key attributes for these latest Diodes’ retimers are an ultra-low latency from signal input to output (<1ns) and a broad temperature range (covering 40°C to +85°C). Both have an I2C programming interface. Automatic power saving modes, applicable to both USB and DP, are pivotal in minimizing energy consumption.
The PI2DPT1021 and PI2DPT821 retimers are supplied in 32-pin QFN packages with 2.85mm x 4.5mm x 0.45mm dimensions. These devices are available at $1.65 and $1.28 respectively in 5000 piece quantities.
Hyundai Open Innovation Gesture Controlled Door Knob
Global automotive leader Hyundai showcased at its recent Open Innovation Lounge a new concept for a gesture-controlled door handle enabled by Somalytics Inc.’s SomaCap, a new type of capacitive sensor that allows consumer product manufacturers and developers to advance the human experience with the Internet of Things. The SomaCap sensors, made of carbon nanotube-infused paper, can “feel” human presence at up to 200 millimeters, making them a valuable embedded technology for companies such as Hyundai working to improve customer experiences with products through more natural and intuitive human-machine interactions.
“Our team was honored to be invited to participate with Hyundai in the development of this exciting prototype for future gesture control door handles, which were featured in the newly established Partners Zone together with Hyundai partner SL at Hyundai’s prestigious OI Lounge,” said Barbara Barclay, CEO of Somalytics. “The possibilities of our sensor technology are limitless for automotive as well as other industries and applications. It’s incredibly exciting to see the potential for this amazing breakthrough technology come to life in these kinds of demonstrations, and we look forward to future collaboration opportunities with Hyundai.”
Beyond automotive, Somalytics’ eye, gesture, touch and fluid-monitoring sensors offer transformative solutions for other areas of transportation, eye tracking, consumer electronics, IoT, health and wellness, entertainment, AR/VR, gaming, and more.
Somalytics last month was recognized by the Consumer Technology Association as a 2023 CES Innovation Awards honoree in the Embedded Technology category for the same SomaCap sensors that were used to create the gesture control door handle featured at the Hyundai OI Lounge.
- Visit Somalytics during CES 2023 Jan. 5-8: Las Vegas Convention Center Central Hall, booth 18490.
Somalytics sensors are highly disruptive to the IoT marketplace because they are more sensitive, are smaller, require less power, and cost much less to manufacture than other available sensor technologies. Somalytics sensor properties are uniquely capable of enabling IoT and human experiences in ways that were never before possible. The tiny yet powerful nanotechnology-infused paper capacitive sensors can be embedded in virtually any material, range in size from 1 to 11 millimeters and are as thin as a human hair.
IonQ Quantum Computers for Hyundai
IonQ (NYSE: IONQ), an industry leader in quantum computing, announced the next stages of its partnership with Hyundai Motor Company to develop the vehicles of the future. Hyundai Motor Company and IonQ will work to develop on IonQ’s quantum computers machine vision algorithms capable of conducting object detection on three dimensional data from autonomous vehicles. Additionally, the two companies will utilize IonQ’s industry-leading quantum computers to simulate electrochemical reactions of varying metal catalysts. The new projects build upon previous work between the two companies and further the role quantum computers have in developing the smart, environmentally friendly vehicles of the future.
In the race to develop reliable, autonomous vehicles of the future, Hyundai is at the forefront. Ongoing research between IonQ and Hyundai has the two companies applying quantum machine learning to image processing, where images – such as road signs – are encoded into a quantum state for classification and object detection. The initial success of these early projects has led Hyundai to pursue additional joint research with IonQ on a number of new techniques. Of particular interest in this new endeavor is the analysis of spatial and environmental data from lidar and other sensors, which could improve vehicles’ understanding of the nature and location of objects, people, and environment around them. Quantum machine learning techniques being investigated at IonQ have shown the potential to learn faster, be more effective in recognizing edge cases, generalize better, learn from lower resolution or noisy data, and capture complex correlations with a far lower number of parameters. These deep technical advantages can ultimately lead to quicker, safer and more accurate decisions without user input.
Additionally, Hyundai’s earlier efforts to study lithium compounds and the chemical reactions involved in battery chemistry has led the group to expand its current scope and explore new metal catalyst chemical reactions for future vehicles. The collective insights and knowledge gained from the quantum simulations will enable Hyundai engineers to potentially develop higher-performance EVs at reduced costs.
“IonQ’s continued work with Hyundai strengthens both our beliefs that quantum will drive the ne