Automotive News: News Source for the Automotive Design Engineers

MIT team claims new fuel cell material
MIT researchers said they have improved the power output of one type of fuel cell by more than 50%.

Asset InterTech spearheads embedded-test structures
As a natural extension of trends in the test and measurement business, the electronics industry is moving toward embedded instrumentation.

San Francisco said to mull Project Better Place's electric car
A report on the website Earth2Tech claims San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom is negotiating the possibility of Project Better Place building the infrastructure for a fleet of plug-in cars in the city.

STMicro, Synopsys drive XA verification of analog ICs
A project between STMicroelectronics and Synopsys has resulted in significantly improved verification of analog IC designs, the companies claim.

DriveCam identifies risky driving
By using pattern recognition to detect risky driving and on human experts to give advice on how to improve each individual's driving safety record, companies like DriveCam are lowering costs for fleet owners and bringing peace of mind to parents worried about reckless driving by their teenagers.

Tools automate support for multicore CPUs
The MathWorks has built new parallel processing techniques into its flagship MatLAB environment, and startup Exludus Technologies is preparing an enhanced release of its scheduling middleware for X86 servers.

OLEDs, e-paper encroach on LCDs
LCDs and plasma screens may be the dominant flat-panel display choices today, but organic LEDs are threatening to move into the living room, and e-paper is carving out a share in portable devices.

ST, Mobileye tackle vehicle vision with next-gen SoC
Resulting from a technological collaboration, STMicroelectronics and Mobileye have sampled the second generation SoC for vision-based driver assistance systems.

NXP, Mentor swap DFT developers, technology
Mentor Graphics is taking on an unspecified number of engineers from NXP Semiconductors' Design for Test operation and establishing an R&D facility in Hamburg , Germany, as part of a deal that also sees the chip maker adopting certain Mentor tools.

Hyundai/Kia selects Microsoft for infotainment
Microsoft will supply Hyundai/Kia with its Microsoft Auto system software platform for infotainment.

HP Labs calls for university proposals
Hewlett Packard is looking for a few good university researchers with hot ideas that need funding as the computer giant officially releases a call for proposals from academia, a new process in the restructuring on the company's storied R&D division.

NXP, Siemens toll road device considers consumer privacy
Toll charges are invoiced monthly, but to ensure privacy consumers can purchase a prepaid card instead.

Vehicles to drive M2M to 37.9% CAGR, says analyst
The number of cellular network connections used for machine-to-machine communication will grow from 37.5 million in 2007 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 37.9% to 186 million connections in 2012.

Automotive electronics cooperation improves test productivity
Vehicle electronics test expert Berner & Mattner has announced a cooperation with embedded software company PikeTec. The move will expand the use cases for model-based real-time tests, the companies said.

Fujitsu claims advance in cosmic-ray-based "soft error" elimination
Fujitsu claims improved semiconductor reliability with a technique for quick and accurate measurement of the "soft errors" on a chip by neutrons from cosmic rays.

About the Automotive DesignLine News Section
Automotive DesignLine's News Section provides engineers with the latest news items shaping the design and development of automotive systems. The news section focuses on the design of chassis and suspension systems, safety and security, body electronics, automotive infotainment systems, and power train design. Other key topics include Key topics covered in this newsletter include automotive motor design, automotive electronics, telematics, Bluetooth design, GPS design, hybrid and electric vehicles, sensors and MEMS, developments in fuel cell technology, automotive data bus technologies, automotive vision systems, and more.