Micronas’ dashboard controller powers VW Passat’s cockpit

Micronas said a member of its 32-bit, ARM7TDMI-based microcontroller family is being used for dashboard control in Volkswagen’s Passat.

Peter Zimmermann, Micronas’ market manager for automotive ICs, said the CDC 32xxG low emission automotive processor (LEAP) chips allow customers to drive up to seven low-current stepper motors for analog instruments, and to drive a 192-segment (48x4) liquid crystal display. Other features include a sound generator, and up to four high-speed CAN 2.0B interface blocks, which support up to 32 message objects.