What you’ll learn:
- The differences between ASICs and FPGAs in automotive applications.
- Why automakers should embrace FPGAs.
- The capabilities of FPGAs in automotive applications.
In the last decade, the automotive industry has dramatically transformed the way vehicles are built—and we’re almost at the stage where creating a personalized in-car experience for drivers is a reality. This technological evolution is powered by the chips inside all automotive electronic control units (ECUs), which have expanded beyond the typical microcontroller to include application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) and field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs).
Both ASICs and FPGAs enable the features that drivers rely on, such as smart lifesaving airbags, proximity sensors, and a plethora of services under the hood, turning modern vehicles into supercomputers on wheels. And while both chips can be used for similar purposes (in most cases), FPGAs have offered unrivaled flexibility and a shorter time-to-market for new features or functions.
Many automakers, though, have been hesitant to fully embrace FPGA chips, which are more expensive per unit, might perform slightly slower in some applications, and are more power-intensive. This has left ASICs as the optimal choice for many automotive manufacturers (and their main suppliers) for mass vehicle production.
But thanks to technological advances, FPGA performance speeds are improving, and their price tag is dropping. They’re also becoming increasingly more common in automotive use cases. One example: Intel is now expanding the chip’s automotive applications within the HUD display, head unit hardware, safety features, and more. Even major conglomerates outside the automotive industry like Siemens are beginning to embrace more efficient FPGA designs.
Despite their cost and performance limitations, FPGAs are lending themselves more and more to the demand for the next-generation software-defined vehicles craved by many drivers.
ASIC vs. FPGA
To understand why FPGAs are playing a more critical role in automotive manufacturing, it’s important to clarify the main aspects that distinguish them from ASICs.
While both chips are built to perform various complex functions in real-time, FPGAs are designed such that they can be reprogrammed and adjusted multiple times during development and even post-manufacturing. FPGAs also take significantly less time to develop, allowing engineers to rapidly iterate and test designs. Compare that to ASICs, which often require months-long design cycles and extensive verification before they can even be manufactured.
The tradeoff for the FPGA’s flexibility is more circuitry, which requires higher power consumption and results in lower performance speeds than ASICs. As a result, FPGAs have generally been more expensive, especially for high-volume production. ASICs, on the other hand, can be manufactured in large quantities at a lower cost per unit.
But recent FPGA design and deployment trends are signaling a possible downward shift in both price and power consumption.
Dynamic Capabilities of FPGAs
In this latest era of mobility, having the capacity to rapidly adjust to both industry and technology trends is critical. An FPGA’s capabilities are, therefore, highly advantageous for engineers to create adaptable systems that can evolve over time to meet shifting market demands.
Due to their versatile design, FPGAs offer a wide range of dynamic capabilities to enhance the driving experience, the first being high-speed connectivity. FPGAs support high-speed interfaces such as Ethernet, CAN, and USB, which enable fast and reliable communication between a vehicle’s multitude of systems.
FPGAs also offer multiprotocol support. This facilitates the simultaneous execution of multiple functionalities, allowing vehicle systems to interact with an array of devices and sensors.
FPGAs can facilitate these tasks by virtue of their low-latency functionality, making them suitable for applications that necessitate real-time responses such as in safety-critical systems. They can also be optimized to reduce the overall power consumed by automotive systems. Doing so can maximize both software and hardware application performance.
What’s more, FPGAs can be used to implement machine-learning algorithms for signal processing, data fusion, and other complex processing tasks so that autonomous vehicles can learn from their surroundings and adapt instantaneously to road conditions.
Time-to-Market: The Real Game Changer
The ability to adjust to both industry and technology trends can make all of the difference for an automaker’s market position.
With an ASIC’s prolonged development and stringent testing phases, the time-to-market for automotive applications from concept to production currently takes anywhere between three to five years—in some cases, up to seven. ASICs are further constrained to what was actually deployed at the manufacturing stage. This limits the amount of post-production updates and additions that are part and parcel of the software-defined vehicle and firmware over-the-air (OTA) paradigm demanded by the automotive industry. FPGAs, however, can be configured, tested, and reprogrammed as many times as necessary in a matter of weeks.
This matters because it gives engineers the ability to adjust designs in response to the emergence of new risks, regulations, or market demands. Thus, they can administer changes even after the FPGA chip is manufactured, without necessitating a complete overhaul.
Fast Track to First Place for FPGAs
The next era of mobility will be defined by capabilities that greenlight immersive in-vehicle experiences, enhanced connectivity, and elevated safety, while offering secure-by-design autonomous features.
FPGA chips have emerged as a practical, all-encompassing solution that offers a fast, flexible, and reliable semiconductor architecture. Therefore, they can play an increasingly significant role in enabling these features throughout the automotive lifecycle. As FPGA technology continues to break new ground, they will become even more suitable for automakers striving to bolster their mass market production.
Between expedited time-to-market and enhancements to vehicle performance benchmarks, leveraging FPGAs offers automakers a way to stay miles ahead of the competition.