SK Hynix signs a long-term contract to supply vehicle memory with functional safety to Bosch, Germany, the world’s number one automotive electronics company.
According to a report, it was confirmed that SK Hynix is currently drafting a contract from the legal department to sign a long-term supply contract for vehicle memory with Bosch. The supply period is more than 10 years.
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It is reported that Bosch visited the company at the end of last year in order to procure memory for SK Hynix vehicles. An industry insider explained, “SK Hynix has developed the specifications requested by Bosch,” and said, “I know that the signing of the transaction contract has reached the final stage.” Bosch is a company that has the largest share of sales in the global automotive electronic parts market.
Until now, automobiles have been equipped with DRAMs, which have a wider operating temperature range compared to general consumer products, and with enhanced reliability. This contract is for newly designed DRAMs that follow the rules of the second edition of ISO26262.
ISO26262 is an international standard established in November 2011 by the International Standards Organization (ISO) to prevent accidents caused by vehicle electronics errors. From Part 1 to Part 11, safety-related requirements such as vehicle electronic components and software (SW) design, analysis, and verification are summarized.
In the second edition of ISO26262, which took effect in 2018, semiconductor design guidelines (11 parts) were added. The big stem of this guideline is to predict the probability of failure, or failure rate. The error rate increases as the operating temperature exceed the allowable limit, there are external factors such as noise, or the chip area increases (the more the number of switching gates increases). A special design block, such as an error correction code (ECC), that checks and informs the user when a failure occurs must also be put in. After all, reducing the failure rate is key.
SK Hynix has been developing related memories by establishing a dedicated vehicle memory team since 2016. The number of personnel from 9 at the time the team was launched has now increased to about 100, and the scale has expanded. The size of this team is expected to increase over time. The person leading the team is Dae-Yong Shim in charge of SK Hynix Automotive (Vice President).
He told the SK Hynix newsroom last August, “We are making great achievements in the automotive semiconductor market this year.” “We are developing a bit-cell technology that enables this.
Car memory usage is expected to increase steadily. According to the market research firm Trend Force, most of the automotive infotainment systems in 2020 are equipped with 1 to 2 GB of DRAM. However, as image quality improves, this capacity is expected to increase to 6-8GB in 2023. The memory used in Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) has also evolved from Levels 1 to 2 (direction and speed assistance) to Level 3 (driver intervention in case of danger), requiring higher safety specifications.
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