Micron Launches Low-Power Memory Qualified for Automotive Safety Applications

March 01, 2021

News

The solution is designed to enhance smart, data-rich driver assistance, automatic braking, and driver warning systems.

 

Micron Technology announced that it has begun sampling the industry’s first automotive low-power DDR5 DRAM (LPDDR5) memory that is hardware-evaluated to meet Automotive Safety Integrity Level (ASIL), ASIL D. The solution is part of Micron’s new portfolio of memory and storage products targeted for automotive functional safety based on the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 26262 standard.

Micron’s functional safety-evaluated DRAM is compatible with advanced-driver assistance system (ADAS) technologies, including adaptive cruise control, automatic emergency braking systems, lane departure warning, and blind spot detection systems. Per the company, Micron’s LPDDR5’s high performance, power efficiency, and low latency provide the requisite performance and headroom to keep pace with increasing bandwidth requirements of next-generation automotive systems.

Recognizing the growing importance of functional safety, Micron has established an office dedicated to collaborating with customers on the memory requirements of designing safe automotive systems. To help customers navigate complex compliance obligations, this office has led the launch of LPDDR5 with a safety application note and the industry’s first supplier-provided hardware evaluation report of DRAM. Micron’s hardware evaluation has also been independently assessed and verified by exida, a renowned expert in automotive safety. By taking on this demanding evaluation in-house, Micron simplifies system design and speeds time to market for automotive customers.

With data-intensive automotive technologies on the rise, ADAS-enabled vehicles now run over 100 million lines of code and require hundreds of tera operations per second, rivaling data center compute. LPDDR5 addresses these requirements with a 50% increase in data access speeds and more than 20% improvement in power efficiency. These capabilities equip intelligent vehicles with near-instantaneous decision-making from the fusion of multiple sensors and inputs, such as radar, lidar, hi-resolution imaging, 5G networking, and optical image recognition.

LPDDR5’s energy efficiency enables high-performance compute for cars while minimizing power consumption for both electric and conventional vehicles, resulting in greener transportation with lower emissions. Micron’s automotive LPDDR5 is also ruggedized to support extreme temperature ranges and qualified for automotive reliability standards such as Automotive Electronics Council-Q100 and International Automotive Task Force 16949.

Accompanied by functional safety collateral, Micron’s LPDDR5 supports customers in conducting comprehensive safety analysis during system configuration. The Micron-provided hardware evaluation report verifies functional safety analysis in strictest compliance with ISO 26262. To meet top-level safety requirements, LPDDR5 incorporates safety mechanisms to detect and control memory errors during operation, as well as mechanisms that can be implemented by system integrators to further reduce risk.

Used by leading automakers, Micron’s memory and storage solutions have accumulated trillions of miles on the road over the company’s 30 years in the automotive market. Micron’s deep expertise stems from tight collaboration with automotive customers on designing memory into the system architecture that underpins ADAS, in-vehicle infotainment, digital cockpits and machine learning. 

For more information, visit micron.com