Paving the Way for Safe Autonomous Vehicles

It’s no secret that consumer cars are increasingly computerized, with features that enhance safety and make driving more fun. With these upgrades come requirements for new, more powerful memory solutions to support data-intensive computing and storage. This month, Samsung kicked off production of four new automotive memory solutions, offering server-class performance and capacity for a new generation of advanced vehicles.

Some industry experts refer to the availability of highly connected, autonomous passenger vehicles as the “Server on Wheels” era. While that might seem like an exaggeration at first glance, it’s entirely accurate. Consider two systems becoming commonplace in cars: in-vehicle infotainment and advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS). Newer high-end vehicles often include in-vehicle-infotainment (IVI) systems, with multi-media features like 3D maps, video streaming and even 3D gaming, which require high-performance graphics DRAM and high-capacity SSDs to operate. To provide a high-end gaming experience, IVI systems are using system controllers with the equivalent processing power as today’s premier gaming consoles. These systems also store large quantities of data, from music to movies to games. Advanced driver-assistance systems collect data from exterior sensors that continuously monitor a vehicle’s environment and surroundings. The car’s processors have to interpret incoming data and render a decision—like whether or not to auto-brake suddenly—in real-time. This kind of processing requires powerful, high-bandwidth memory. ADAS systems also store driving data which is uploaded to the cloud for future AI training that generates more sophisticated AI inferences enabling safer driving, especially with autonomous driving systems, necessitating high capacity memory dedicated to storage. According to Donovan Hwang, Sr. Director of Memory Marketing, “Samsung Semiconductor memory solutions enable these kinds of rapid decision-making processors. We’ve developed special automotive memory solutions like those typically used for graphics processing/rendering in a powerful server. It’s robust and reliable, and most importantly, incredibly fast, so the car’s system-on-chips (SOCs) can do what’s needed to provide the right information to the driver at all times—eventually, Samsung memory will be supporting the processors used in autonomous driving.” In addition to memory used to support data processing, Samsung has unveiled high-capacity storage solutions, increasingly necessary in connected cars that can generate gigabytes of data every day. The new automotive memory lineup targeted for autonomous driving and IVI systems includes:

These new memory solutions meet global automotive reliability standards[1] that ensure stable operation at temps between -40°C to +105°C—critical to ensuring that in-car systems operate smoothly, even in harsh weather. It is our hope that autonomously driving vehicles will usher in a new era of automotive safety on roads all around the world. We are thrilled to be a part of the industry to pave the way to a brave new future of safe, secure passenger travel. [1] AEC-Q100 qualifications