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News
www.eenewseurope.com April 2020
electronics europe News
OptiMOS™ Source-Down
a new era in MOSFET performance
european
business press
CONTENTS APRIL 2020
Dear readers, www.een
ewseurop
News
e.com
April 2020
Confinement has become the norm for most of Europeans and restrictions are taking
place all over the world, giving a devastating blow to many industries and livelihoods electron
ics euro
pe News
yet promising casualty mitigation.
The extreme economical context is calling for societal changes. The urgency to
find medical and welfare solutions is accelerating research, unleashing new funds,
open-source projects are flourishing and companies of all sizes are rushing to put
remote work strategies into place and re-organize their workforce with new priori-
ties. These changes will be long lasting, and hopefully for the better.
Our April edition looks at some of the latest edge hardware and AI firmware solu-
tions, some of which may find direct use in deciphering the vast amounts of data
put to contribution by epidemiologists to predict the progression of the virus and
possibly decide on the best confinement strategies. OptiMOS
Other features covered in eeNews Europe’s April edition include Optoelectron-
™ Source
a new er -Down
a in MOSF
ics, Power Supplies and Batteries. ET perfo
rmance
Until confinement restrictions become a thing of the past, stay safe, read and
europe
business an
press
educate yourself. Feel free to share your academic and business news with us.
Julien Happich
Editor in Chief
4 - 49: OPINION 34 - 43: EDGE COMPUTING & AI
Uncommon Market: Industry 4.0: edge
Food system at risk of computing power is key
crash? Edge computing used in
conjunction with cloud
Last Word: computing – that is,
Haptics is ready for processing data locally
standardization then sending it to the
cloud – is becoming an
increasingly indispens-
6 - 25: NEWS & TECHNOLOGY able element of the burgeoning Industry 4.0 concept.
Photonic platform delivers
compact beam steering 44 - 47: OPTOELECTRONICS
Researchers led by Colum-
bia Engineering Professor Event-camera equipped drones get milliseconds
Michal Lipson have devel- reaction times
oped a low-power beam Leveraging so-called
steering platform that is event cameras
a non-mechanical, robust, and scalable approach to with a proprietary
beam steering. moving-obstacle
detection algorithm,
researchers have
26 - 33: POWER SUPPLIES & BATTERIES reduced a drone‘s
reaction time from
Thin transparent nano- tens of milliseconds
generator is stretchable to only 3.5 milliseconds in order to detect and avoid
Researchers have fast-moving objects.
devised a stretchable tri-
boelectric nanogenerator
that leverages the unique
properties of a layer of 48: DISTRIBUTION CORNER
carbon nanotubes (CNTs)
within a transparent elastomer matrix, capable of
delivering up to 8W/m2.
www.eenewseurope.com eeNews Europe April 2020 News 3
UNCOMMON MARKET ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Food system at risk of crash?
By Richard Tiffin
T
ech company backed by UK Government and Microsoft early customers. Recently Airbus, the world’s second largest
claim our food system is at risk. Artificial Intelligence fed aerospace company, announced they would use Agrimetrics to
by a Data Marketplace is the solution. sell satellite imagery that can be used to monitor crop health.
Covid-19 is a reminder of how vulnerable our food system “The Marketplace is a great way to get people sharing
is. Supermarket shelves are empty. Twelve years earlier, the information in the same place, but that’s only the first stage of
financial crash exposed the dangers of a finance system built the solution,” continues Professor Tiffin. “If we are to answer
on a web of interdependencies – many poorly understood. The complex questions then data needs to be organised in certain
effects of 2008 are still being felt today. ways. This includes predicting future food shortages, finding
It was this fear of a ways of reducing agricul-
systemic crash in our food ture’s carbon footprint and
system that drove Professor limiting the spread of crop
Richard Tiffin, then Director of disease.”
the Centre for Food Security, Agrimetrics uses a ‘Knowl-
to co-found Agrimetrics. edge Graph’ to connect the
“I wanted us to understand data on its Marketplace;
the hidden risks that could the same technology used
spark a catastrophic chain of by Google and Amazon. It
events,” explains Professor works by defining the relation-
Tiffin. “Our food system is ship between data, which en-
incredibly interdependent, but ables people and machines to
ironically it’s also incredibly find the information they need
disconnected. We have no more quickly.
idea of the long-term conse- “The current applications of
quences of events like Covid-19. To avoid collapse, we need to artificial intelligence are narrow and require human intervention.
understand these connections.” The beauty of organising data in this way is that AI will be able
1950’s China is an example of why this is so important. The to self-serve. It will be able to explore the connections between
Four Pests Campaign sought to eliminate rats, flies, mosquitoes billions of different variables, uncovering links and insights that
and sparrows. Unfortunately, though sparrows are an agricul- we’d never even considered.”
tural pest, they also prey on a greater pest: locusts. The ensuing For example, assume you are researching the cause of your
ecological imbalance fuelled the house plant’s recent poor health.
Great Chinese Famine, which AI could use the knowledge
killed 45 million people. graph to identify variables influ-
The Arab Spring is a more re- encing plant health: soil, tem-
cent example. Drought and wild- perature, fertilisation, pot, light,
fires decimated crops in Eastern and irrigation. Then automati-
Europe. Putin halted exports and cally understand the variables
World grain prices increased by relevant to these variables – and
40%. Food shortages sparked so on. The answer could be tem-
revolution. Half a million lives perature spikes causes by turning
have been lost in Syria alone. your oven on, or contamination
The refugee crisis has had a last- in the production of your artificial
ing effect on Europe. fertiliser.
“These are extreme examples, In the real-world, Agrimet-
but it’s easy to see how under- rics’s projects have reduced the
standing the connections would flow of pesticides into water-
have helped us limited the damage of these crises, or avoid ways and used predictive models to improve fresh food sup-
them all together.” ply chains and animal health. However, Agrimetrics and their
This was one motivation behind the UK Government’s deci- partners have grander ambitions for the future.
sion to provide initial funding for Agrimetrics, who boast Micro- “Average crop yields are around half of what is theoretically
soft as a strategic partner. possible - we call this the yield gap. In theory, if we could better
understand why this gap occurs, then we could increase output
Feeding AI on arable farms with no additional inputs,” concludes Tiffin.
The funding was used to build a Data Marketplace, which hous- “The best manufacturers have used data and AI to increase
es information from across the global food system. Agrochemi- production by 50% and cut waste by 20%; agriculture can
cal giant BASF and consumer goods company Unilever were do the same. It is possible to sustainably feed everyone on
our planet for many years to come, but not without AI and not
Richard Tiffin is Professor of Applied Economics at the without data sharing. I believe that this can only be achieved
University of Reading and Agrimetrics’ Chief Scientific Officer - through a Data Marketplace that rewards those who are willing
www.agrimetrics.co.uk to share their data.”
4 News April 2020 @eeNewsEurope www.eenewseurope.com
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NEWS & TECHNOLOGY COVER STORY
Introducing a new industry benchmark
MOSFET footprint
The OptiMOS™ Source-Down Power MOSFET
By Bastian Lang, Product Marketing Manager at Infineon Technologies
W
hen it comes to power management, the market is gate and source connection of the silicon die is directly estab-
striving for higher energy efficiency, power density, lished on the lead frame. The electrical connection of the drain
ruggedness and improved lifetime for end applica- (from the top of the die) can be achieved with a very large cop-
tions. While advancements in silicon technologies are pushing per clip.
the envelope of key performance parameters, new package Figure 2 shows the difference in the footprints of the PQFN
concepts offering groundbreaking benefits are seldom. With 3.3x3.3 mm OptiMOS™ MOSFET family. The electrical con-
the introduction of the new Source-Down technology and the nection of drain, source and gate are still at the same location
release of a whole new product family, Infineon is leading the making a drop-in replacement very easy.
way towards defining a new industry standard footprint.
Drain-Down versus Source-Down
Figure 2:(a) A standard PQFN 3.3x3.3 mm, (b) the new Source-
Down PQFN 3.3x3.3 mm and (c) the new Source-Down
Center-Gate PQFN 3.3x3.3 mm package footprints
With the introduction of the new Source-Down concept, two
new footprints are established. The Source-Down Standard-
Gate (Figure 2b) and the Source-Down Center-Gate (Figure 2c).
Utilizing the Source-Down benefits
Figure 1: the internal construction of a PQFN 3.3x3.3 mm These new footprints come with several benefits such as:
Drain-Down power MOSFET (left) and the internal 1) Improved RDS(on)
2) Reduced thermal resistance
construction of a PQFN 3.3x3.3 mm Source-Down power
3) New thermal management capabilities
MOSFET (right)
RDS(on): Flipping the die upside down removes some construc-
Figure 1 (on the left) shows the structure of a modern vertical tion limitations that apply to the standard drain-down devices.
trench power MOSFET, giving an idea of the cross-section of With the Source-Down approach, some of these constraints are
a power MOSFET underneath a PQFN 3.3x3.3 mm package. loosened enabling the use of much bigger dies and hence re-
The base of this architecture is a lead frame. This is serving as duction of RDS(on) by 30%. Lower RDS(on) is directly linked to the
the carrier of the thin silicon die and the drain connection of the reduction of I2R losses in the application and leads to greater
silicon on the bottom side. In a vertical trench MOSFET, the cur- power densities.
rent is flowing vertically through the device,the top- and the bot-
tom side of the device therefore serve as electrical connections. Thermal management: It is one of the strongest disciplines in
The active trenches of an n-channel power MOSFET are on the power electronics design. Keeping your thermals under control
source side of the die which is typically located at the top. The directly translates to longer end-device lifetimes or the ability to
source connection of the silicon die is established with a copper increase power density. The Source-Down concept offers mul-
clip that is connecting the top area of the silicon die with a part tiple benefits enabling cooler designs. A significant reduction in
of the lead frame. The gate connection is also located on the RDS(on) has an impact on thermals too: as it lowers losses in the
side of the active trenches and typically connected with the lead device, consequently the device-temperature is decreased. The
frame via a bond wire. With this construction, all three electri- active trenches of a vertical power MOSFET are located on the
cal connections can be brought onto the lead frame so that the source side of the silicon die. This is where most of the losses
MOSFET can be mounted on a PCB. are generated during the operation and ultimately where the
losses are converted to excess heat. In a traditional Drain-Down
The Source-Down concept device, this heat needs to be transported through the silicon to
This new approach is simple yet groundbreaking. We take the the drain side which is connected to the lead frame and then to
silicon die inside of the MOSFET package and flip it upside the PCB.
down. This way now the source potential is connected to the Flipping the die upside down puts these active trenches of the
lead frame instead of the drain potential. Figure 1 (on the right) silicon die directly onto the copper lead frame. The heat that
shows the structure of the new Source-Down technology. The is generated in those trenches can, therefore, be conducted
6 News April 2020 @eeNewsEurope www.eenewseurope.com
COVER STORY
directly into the PCB over the lead frame. This new construction ing case, a buck converter was designed with the best-in-class
setup leads to a reduction in Rthjc of 22 percent from 1,8 K/W devices currently available in the market. Figure 4 shows the
down to 1,4 K/W. configurations (a) with a PQFN 5x6 mm solution (b) using the
currently available best-in-class PQFN 3.3x3.3 mm and finally
(c) when applying the Source-Down solution.
Figure 3: (a) the schematic of a synchronous buck converter Figure 4 Configurations (a) with a PQFN 5x6 mm solution, (b)
implemented with a half-bridge MOSFET configuration and the currently available best-in-class PQFN 3.3x3.3 mm and (c)
(b) example layout of a Drain-Down (in the high side) and the Source-Down solution
a Source-Down (in the low side) in a half-bridge MOSFET
Looking at the efficiency in the application in Figure 5, the
configuration
Source-Down solution clearly outperforms the other two
The Source-Down concept has a number of advantages in a options. For instance, for the full load scenario, 1.5 percent
half- or full-bridge configuration designs. The copper area of improvement is achieved. This point is critical because of the
the PCB that is connected to the thermal pad of the MOSFET is thermal limitations. Enhancements in full load are directly tied
generally very helpful in distributing the losses generated in the to achieving higher power densities in the end application. In
MOSFET. Figure 3a shows the schematic of a widely used syn- addition to the efficiency, the thermal performance of the device
chronous buck converter as an example. The drain potential of as a static switch was also analyzed. Thanks to the innovative
the high-side FET is connected to the input voltage. The source Source-Down concept, much larger silicon dies can be housed
contact of the low-side FET is connected to the GND potential. in the PQFN 3.3x3.3 mm footprint enabling a significant im-
The source potential of the high-side device is connected to the provement in RDS(on). This combined with a better RthJC makes the
drain of the low-side MOSFET forming the switch node. By us- Source-Down device stays significantly cooler than common-
ing the Drain-Down in the low-side of a half-bridge, the thermal footprint components. A 10°C cooler design compared to the
pad would be connected to the switch node area. The switch current available PQFN 3.3x3.3 mm solution could be achieved
node potential is a modulated waveform and therefore jumping at 20 A constant current.
between Vin and the GND potential. This area should be mini-
mized to reduce the noise emitted into the system but this mini-
mization would limit the thermal management capabilities of the
low-side MOSFET. The Source-Down concept overcomes this
challenge as the thermal pad of the low-side MOSFET is now
on the ground potential. Since the ground area is generally kept
large, it serves as a heatsink that can be utilized with the big
thermal pad of the Source-Down device. Additionally, thermal
vias can easily be used on the GND potential right under the
device. Figure 3b depicts an example of a possible PCB layout.
As can be seen, the two potentials that can be considered silent Figure 5 Sytem efficiency for different MOSFET configurations
(or not jumping) are +12V and GND.
(demonstrated in Figure 4)
Based on the above, the three major benefits that make the
new Source-Down concept a thermal management champion The new industry benchmark
are: The Source-Down concept in Power MOSFETs is opening up
- Significant reduction of RDS(on) some layout related constraints in power management. With
- Decrease of RthJC by 22% the improvements of the electrical and thermal performance
- Optimal layout possibilities parameters of the device paired with the newly gained flexibility
in system design, there are no more limitations for engineers to
Parallel operation explore new concepts and bring their applications performace
In applications like OR-ing and battery protection, large currents to unprecented levels.
must be handled statically. For this, very low on-state-resis-
tance is key to limit the losses in the system and keep the tem- Scan for more information:
perature at acceptable levels. To accomplish the lowest RDS(on),
multiple MOSFETs are connected in parallel. The Center-Gate
option offers a wider creepage distance between the drain and
source contacts, which allows that the gates of multiple devices
can be connected on one single PCB layer instead of being
routed through vias and connected to other layers of the board.
Application benefits, real-life examples
Discussing a real-life example helps to explore where the new
Source-Down concept really plays out its benefits. In the follow-
www.eenewseurope.com eeNews Europe April 2020 News 7
NEWS & TECHNOLOGY PHOTONICS
Lidar technology market is facing
shakeout, study says
By Christoph Hammerschmidt
I
n a comprehensive report, technology consulting firm A rather new player on the scene is Livox. They are set up
IDTechEx presented its findings from the observation of 107 by the Chinese drone maker DJI and seem to be following the
manufacturers of vehicle lidar systems. Central perception: same strategy: offering a compelling price in order to drive oth-
The market has more than enough technology alternatives to ers out and force an industry consolidation. This is a tempting
offer; suppliers who enter the market for the first time will have strategy given that there are so many players and technologies
a hard time. today and that most offerings are too expensive and only prom-
Lidar is a sensor technology that enables vehicles to per- ise future cost reductions, say the IDTechEx experts. The lidar
ceive their surroundings, make decisions and navigate. 3D lidar is also ToF operating at 905nm. Their Mid-40 lidar with 38.4
systems scan the environment with light beams and create a degrees of field of view, 0.05-0.1 angular resolution and 260m
virtual model of the environment from the measurement of beam is using a rotating prism. The interesting point here is that DJI
reflections. This model is used by vehicle electronics to detect - thanks to its drone business - has excellent know-how and
and identify objects and to develop a driving strategy based on capability in designing the motors, which are often a cost and
the knowledge gained. Most car manufacturers consider 3D li- reliability bottleneck. They have already received a 5k unit order
dar to be indispensable for automated driving (including levels 3 and completed 13k hours of reliability testing running 24/7.
and 4) and have established partnerships with suppliers of lidar As competition intensifies in the automotive lidar market, it
technology. One notable exception is Tesla - the Elon Musks seems likely that some start-ups will not survive. Oryx Vision
company believes it can do without lidar. is the first high-profile casualty: the Israeli 3D lidar business
According to IDTechEx experts, the most well-known player closed in August 2019 despite having secured $67 million
is the US company Velodyne, known in 2005 for its mechani- USD in funding. Oryx publicly stated delays in the automotive
cal rotating lidar HDL-64. Velodyne’s first MLA (micro-lidar industry as an important factor in the decision to end opera-
array) product, Velarray, was announced in 2017, followed by tions. IDTechEx however believe that their unusual and complex
VelaDome in 2019, which is designed for close-range opera- lidar architecture was the main reason. Oryx Vision described
tion, while Velarray offers object detection at long range. The their lidar design as ‘coherent flash’ technology; it operates at a
new non-rotating technology for the automotive industry uses wavelength of 10 micrometres that common and cost-effective
a 128-channel VCSEL light source. It is based on 905nm ToF. lasers cannot produce.
The scanning mechanism is not known; IDTEchEx assumes an The report also examines the companies that already suc-
electromechanical approach. ceeded in securing a contract with a global car manufacturer.
Another big name in this market is the Canadian company Major automotive OEMs prefer to obtain lidar technology for
LeddarTech. The company offers lidar modules, but the main their autonomous production vehicles via trusted Tier 1 part-
focus of the company is the LeddarEngine SoC together with ners. The general trend in the automotive industry is that Tier
related software. The company has recently launched the Led- 2 suppliers develop new lidar technologies, while Tier 1 sup-
dar Pixell 3D flash lidar module, which is optimized for proximity pliers optimize these products for high-volume production. For
detection and blind spot coverage in urban environments, and example, Valeo Scala technology was originally developed by
this strengthens the company’s position in the autonomous Ibeo Automotive Systems GmbH. Valeo developed Ibeo’s lidar
shared mobility market. into a mass-produced sensor for Audi. Similarly, Innoviz has
Quanergy, a Californian start-up founded in 2012, rose to partnered with Magna, the Canadian Tier 1 supplier, and Magna
fame by developing the world’s first optical phased array (OPA) will deliver automotive grade lidar modules to BMW.
3D lidar for the automotive industry. In recent years, Quanergy Ibeo is now developing a 905nm ToF lidar using SPAD
has shifted their attention to non-automotive markets following detectors which require multiple measurements to build up
challenges and delays they faced in the automotive industry. It the picture but give out a digital signal. Their design includes
is an important question as to whether Quanergy has made the a VCSEL array and an SPAD array (12800 pixels and emitters).
right technology choices in its OPA system or not. The choice They have three ASICs which allow them to control the system
of 905nm brings the benefit of using a well-established light and generate specific patterns on the VCSEL without the need
source and detector, but the SiNx OPA platform might be slow to flash the entire scene. That enables them to boost the range
and present significant heat management issues. The lack of to 250m even though the system architecture and components
a foundry ecosystem may also push Quandary to take on too are similar to a flash lidar. The IC placement and assembly are
many tasks. One brightest young star in this market is Innoviz, also relatively straight forward allowing high level of automation.
an Israeli start-up founded in 2016 with the aim of developing In general, this puts them on a good cost-reduction path which
and commercializing 3D lidar based on MEMS mirror beam may mean that the lack of a scanning mechanism could be
steering. It counts Magna International amongst its investors. compensated by multiple lidars. Ibeo is working with their inves-
In the past three years, Innoviz accumulated an impressive tors ZF Friedrichshafen AG.
$252 million USD and secured a contract with BMW to supply However, a minority of Tier 1 suppliers and automotive OEMs
the InnovizOne product in 2021 for a BMW production vehicle. develop their own lidar technology.
InnovizOne is positioned as an automotive grade MEMS-based
lidar module. The question is now whether it will finally gain
commercial adoption or not.
8 News April 2020 @eeNewsEurope www.eenewseurope.com
PHOTONICS
Photonic platform delivers
compact beam steering
By Julien Happich
R
emoving the need for bulky me- Phased array devices were initially devel-
chanical assemblies, researchers oped at larger electromagnetic wavelengths.
from the Columbia University School By applying different phases at each antenna,
of Engineering and Applied Science are researchers can form a very directional beam
anticipating that more compact and all-solid- by designing constructive interference in one
state LiDARs could be designed based on direction and destructive in other directions.
a promising new technology, so-called com- In order to steer or turn the beam’s direction,
pact optical phased arrays (OPAs) which they they can delay light in one emitter or shift a
managed to implement at very low power. phase relative to another.
OPAs change the angle of an optical beam Current visible light applications for OPAs
by changing the beam’s phase profile. To have been limited by bulky table-top devices
date, long-range, high-performance OPAs Packaged large-scale optical phased that have a limited field of view due to their
required a large beam emission area densely array for solid-state LiDAR. Credit: large pixel width. Previous OPA research
packed with thousands of actively phase- done at the near-infrared wavelength, includ-
Steven Miller, Columbia Engineering.
controlled, power-hungry light-emitting ing work from the Lipson Nanophotonics
elements, which made them impractical for Group, faced fabrication and material chal-
LiDAR applications. lenges in doing similar work at the visible
Researchers led by Columbia Engineer- wavelength.
ing Professor Michal Lipson have developed “As the wavelength becomes smaller, the
a low-power beam steering platform that light becomes more sensitive to small chang-
is a non-mechanical, robust, and scalable es such as fabrication errors,” says Min Chul
approach to beam steering. The team is one Shin, a Ph.D. student in the Lipson group and
of the first to demonstrate low-power large- co-lead author of the Optics Letter paper. “It
scale optical phased array at near infrared also scatters more, resulting in higher loss if
and the first to demonstrate optical phased Blue optical phased array for augmented fabrication is not perfect—and fabrication can
array technology on-chip at blue wavelength reality, trapped ion quantum computer never be perfect.”
for autonomous navigation and augmented and optogenetic neural stimulation. It was only three years ago that Lipson’s
reality, respectively. Credit: Myles Marshall, Secret Molecule, team showed a low-loss material platform
In collaboration with Adam Kepecs’ group Min Chul Shin, Aseema Mohanty, by optimizing fabrication recipes with silicon
at Washington University in St. Louis, the Columbia Engineering. nitride. They leveraged this platform to realize
team has also developed an implantable pho- their new beam steering system in the visible
tonic chip based on an optical switch array at blue wavelengths wavelength—the first chip-scale phased array operating at blue
for precise optogenetic neural stimulation. The research has been wavelengths using a silicon nitride platform.
recently published in three separate papers in Optica, Nature A major challenge for the researchers was working in the blue
Biomedical Engineering, and Optics Letters. range, which has the smallest wavelength in the visible spectrum
“This new technology that enables our chip-based devices to and scatters more than other colors because it travels as shorter,
point the beam anywhere we want opens the door wide for trans- smaller waves. Another challenge in demonstrating a phased
forming a broad range of areas,” explains Lipson, Eugene Higgins array in blue was that to achieve a wide angle, the team had to
Professor of Electrical Engineering and Professor of Applied overcome the challenge of placing emitters half a wavelength
Physics. “These include, for instance, the ability to make LiDAR apart or at least smaller than a wavelength, at a 40nm pitch, which
devices as small as a credit card for a self-driving car, or a neural was very difficult to achieve. In addition, in order to make optical
probe that controls micron scale beams to stimulate neurons for phased array useful for practical applications, they needed many
optogenetics neuroscience research, or a light delivery method to emitters. Scaling this up to a large system would be extremely
each individual ion in a system for general quantum manipulations difficult.
and readout.” “Not only is this fabrication really hard, but there would also
Lipson’s team has designed a multi-pass platform that reduces be a lot of optical crosstalk with the waveguides that close,” says
the power consumption of an optical phase shifter while maintain- Shin. “We can’t have independent phase control plus we’d see all
ing both its operation speed and broadband low loss for enabling the light coupled to each other, not forming a directional beam.”
scalable optical systems. They let the light signal recycle through Solving these issues for blue meant that the team could easily
the same phase shifter multiple times so that the total power do this for red and green, which have longer wavelengths. “This
consumption is reduced by the same factor it recycles. They dem- wavelength range enables us to address new applications such as
onstrated a silicon photonic phased array containing 512 actively optogenetic neural stimulation,” notes Aseema Mohanty, a post-
controlled phase shifters and optical antenna, consuming very low doctoral research scientist and co-lead author of the Optics Letter
power while performing 2-D beam steering over a wide field of and Nature Biomedical Engineering papers. “We used the same
view. Their results are a significant advance towards building scal- chip-scale technology to control an array of micron-scale beams
able phased arrays containing thousands of active elements. to precisely probe neurons within the brain.”
www.eenewseurope.com eeNews Europe April 2020 News 9
NEWS & TECHNOLOGY ELECTROMOBILITY
Large pouch cell battery tech at heart of GM EV strategy
By Nick Flaherty
T
he modular propulsion system for next generation GM “Our team accepted the challenge to transform product
global electric vehicles is based on a proprietary low co- development at GM and position our company for an all-electric
balt lithium ion Ultium pouch cell batteries to be built with future,” said Mary Barra, GM chairman and CEO. “What we
LG Chem. High volume manufacture will drive the cost under have done is build a multi-brand, multi-segment EV strategy
$100/kWh, says GM, which will with economies of scale that rival
also license the pouch cell technol- our full-size truck business with
ogy to other companies. much less complexity and even
The large-format pouch cells more flexibility.”
can be stacked vertically or hori- Chevrolet, Cadillac, GMC and
zontally inside the battery pack. Buick will all be launching new EVs
This allows engineers to optimize this year. The next new Chevrolet
the battery energy storage and EV will be a new version of the Bolt
layout for each vehicle design. Ul- EV, launching in late 2020, followed
tium energy options range from by the 2022 Bolt EUV, launching
50 to 200 kWh, which could en- Summer 2021. The Bolt EUV will
able a GM-estimated range up to be the first vehicle outside of the
400 miles (880km) or more on a Cadillac brand to feature Super
full charge with 0 to 60 mph ac- Cruise, a Level 2 hands-free driving
celeration in 3s. Motors designed technology for the motorway. This
in-house will support front-wheel will expand to 22 vehicles by 2023,
drive, rear-wheel drive, all-wheel including 10 by next year.
drive and performance all-wheel drive applications. The Cruise Origin, a self-driving, electric shared vehicle,
The Ultium-powered EVs are designed for DC fast charging shown to the public in January, was the first product revealed
and most will have 400V battery packs and up to 200 kW fast- using GM’s third generation EV platform and Ultium batteries.
charging capability. Truck versionos of the platfrom will have Next will be the Cadillac Lyriq luxury SUV in April. A GMC Hum-
800V battery packs and 350 kW fast-charging capability. There mer EV that uses the Ultium pouch cell technology is currently
will be plans 19 different battery and drive unit configurations planned for May. Production is expected to begin towards the
initially, compared with 550 internal combustion powertrain end of 2021 at the Detroit-Hamtramck assembly plant, GM’s
combinations available today. first assembly plant 100 percent dedicated to EV production.
BMW introduces “ecological geofencing” for hybrid vehicles
By Christoph Hammerschmidt
C
armaker BMW wants to contribute to the reduction of signal in the Control Display.
pollutant emissions in inner cities with a new feature: The service is now available in around 80 European cities.
The cars’ navigation system automatically switches from Further BMW models and regions are to follow. The system is
the combustion engine to the electric motor as soon as the based on a practical test conducted by BMW in Rotterdam.
vehicle enters selected urban areas or environmental zones. 50 drivers of plug-in hybrids were asked to switch to purely
In various plug-in hybrid models from BMW, drivers now electric driving mode via a specially developed smartphone app
can preset so-called “e- when entering the defined
drive zones”. When the inner city zone. As a result,
car enters such an inner- around 90 percent of all
city low emission zone, routes within the core area
it automatically switches were covered electrically,
from combustion to electric BMW says.
mode. For this purpose, According to the car-
the vehicles use geofenc- maker, the technology is a
ing technology via GPS, in contribution to the Smart
which an area is predefined City vision. This approach
on the map by means of is also conceivable for
coordinates. The zone is other vehicle brands,
then graphically displayed the vehicle manufacturer
to the driver on his navi- explained. In addition, it
gation device. Within this gives city administrations
area, the car drives electri- a means of improving air
cally for as long as the battery’s state of charge permits. If the quality in particularly critical areas or even in the entire urban
battery’s energy reserves run out, the system switches back to area, provided that other OEMs should also implement the tech-
the combustion engine. The driver receives a corresponding nology in their vehicles.
10 News April 2020 @eeNewsEurope www.eenewseurope.comELECTROMOBILITY
Continental invests into Lidar start-up Blickfeld
By Nick Flaherty
S
olid state LiDAR developer Blickfeld has raised its Series as our technology stands out due to its mass market capabil-
A round of funding to expand production. The round for ity,” said Florian Petit, co-founder of Blickfeld. “But the mobility
the Munich-based solid state LiDAR start up was led by sector is not the only area of application for our LiDAR sensors
the venture capital unit of automotive system supplier Continen- and recognition software: Numerous other successful customer
tal together with Wachstumsfonds Bayern, which is managed projects in logistics, smart cities or the security sector confirm
by Bayern Kapital. The round included our approach, as does the financial
the existing investors Fluxunit, which commitment of the venture capital unit
is part of OSRAM Ventures, High- of Continental, Bayern Kapital and our
Tech Gründerfonds, TEV (Tengelmann previous investors. We are now looking
Ventures) and Unternehmertum Venture forward to taking the next steps into
Capital Partners. These had provided series production.”
$5.7m in seed funding. The amount of “Blickfeld’s industry-agnostic value
the Series A round was not disclosed. proposition, i.e. reliability, performance
Blickfeld says it will use the funding and scalability, addresses various
to ramp up production, qualify its solid growth markets in automotive and
state LiDAR sensors for the automotive beyond. What truly sets the company
market and strengthen the applica- apart is the advanced technological
tion development and sales teams for maturity, which the team has achieved
industrial markets. It currently has 100 staff. The company says in an extremely short amount of time. Supported by a strong
its patented technology is suitable for smart cities, industrial ap- syndicate of VC investors and industry experts, Blickfeld now
plications and security systems as well as driverless cars. is in prime position to establish itself as a key player in future
“The safety of autonomous vehicles is based on LiDAR sensing technology,” said Nils Berkemeyer, Venture Capital
sensor technology. We see Blickfeld in a unique position here, Manager at Continental.
www.eenewseurope.com eeNews Europe April 2020 News 11NEWS & TECHNOLOGY BATTERIES
Solid state battery prototype cell extends EV range to 800km
By Nick Flaherty
R
esearchers from the Samsung Advanced Institute of tory in Hungary into a battery gigafactory to meet demand for
Technology (SAIT) and the Samsung R&D Institute Japan electric vehicles. The Ag-C layer is 5µm and allowed the team
(SRJ) have shown a prototype solid state battery in a to reduce anode thickness, giving the higher energy density up
pouch cell with an energy density of to 900Wh/L. It also enabled them to
900Wh/l to give an electric vehicle make their prototype approximately
(EV) a range of 800 km. A solid state 50 percent smaller by volume than
battery with a solid electrolyte has a a conventional lithium-ion battery.
greater energy density than current The prototype pouch cell that the
liquid versions, which opens the door team developed would enable an
for larger capacities, and is safer. EV to travel up to 800km on a single
However, the lithium metal anode charge, and features a cycle life of
used in a solid state battery can still over 1,000 charges.
trigger the growth of dendrites which “The product of this study could
can lead to short circuits, overheating be a seed technology for safer, high-
and fires. performance batteries of the future.
So the team at Samsung used a silver-carbon (Ag-C) com- Going forward, we will continue to develop and refine all-solid-
posite layer as the anode in a prototype pouch cell to yield a state battery materials and manufacturing technologies to help
larger capacity, a longer cycle life and enhanced safety. The use take EV battery innovation to the next level,” said Dongmin Im,
of a pouch cell means that the technology can be integrated Master at SAIT’s Next Generation Battery Lab and the leader of
into existing production lines. Samsung SDI already produces the project, above right with Yuichi Aihara, Principal Engineer
pouch cells for battery packs for BMW and turned a TV fac- from SRJ (left) and Yong-Gun Lee, Principal Researcher.
Immersion of electric vehicle batteries:
the best way to keep cool?
By Julien Happich
T
he electric vehicle market is growing rapidly, and with it is required and hence a serious amount of heat is generated.
the demand for fast charging, increased energy density Immersion cooling is one of these emerging technologies for bat-
and improved safety. Something that all these areas have tery thermal management and has been previously demonstrated
in common is heat. Charging a battery quickly generates a lot of in electronics for data centres, high-performance computing and
heat, with the extra energy ca- grid power systems, but is
pacity of modern and upcom- now seeing an opportunity in
ing electric vehicle batteries, the electric vehicle market.
extracting this heat becomes As the name suggests,
more challenging. If this heat is immersion cooling involves
not distributed effectively, not submerging the battery cells
only is the performance and in a liquid coolant, in doing
lifetime of the battery greatly so superior thermal contact
reduced, but thermal runaway and homogeneity can be
and vehicle fires are a potential achieved. Additionally, the
hazard. Immersion cooling is flame-retardant nature of the
an emerging potential alter- fluids acts as a safety feature,
native to traditional battery suppressing thermal runaway
cooling methods and is just events before they propagate
one of the topics covered in between cells. A key consid-
the Thermal Management for Electric Vehicles 2020-2030 report eration here is obviously the choice of coolant fluid used, through
from IDTechEx. primary research, IDTechEx benchmark the current fluid options,
While most major OEMs in the passenger car market are including those from 3M, Solvay, M&I Materials and Engineered
utilising air or water-glycol cooling methods, some suppliers are Fluids. These fluids are all dielectrics but vary in their properties
turning to new methods to meet the increasing thermal demand with factors such as weight, thermal conductivity, environmental
on vehicle batteries. This is especially true when considering considerations and cost, being extremely important.
more specialised markets such as electric construction and min- XING Mobility are a company specialising in the more niche
ing vehicles, in this scenario extremely intense battery discharge electric vehicle markets with their modular immersion-cooled
battery packs utilising 3M’s Novec fluid. In another niche market,
Dr James Edmondson, Technology Analyst at IDTechEx - Rimac Automobili have opted for Solvay’s Galden fluid for their
www.electricvehiclesresearch.com electric hypercars. Whilst the technology shows promise with
12 News April 2020 @eeNewsEurope www.eenewseurope.comBATTERIES
technically excellent performance; it will be difficult
for immersion cooling to enter the mass produc-
tion automotive market due to the increased XING Mobility provide complete
weight and cost compared with currently utilised drivetrain solutions built around
methods. However, regulations regarding thermal their immersion cooled battery
safety of electric vehicles are changing, and with packs which are modular to allow
it these emerging technologies may start to take a fitting into the required geometry.
more significant market share. Source: XING Mobility, IDTechEx
Immersion cooling is just one of the emerging Show, Santa Clara 2019.
technologies covered in the recent report from
IDTechEx on Thermal Management for Electric
Vehicles 2020-2030 which addresses and analyses the cur- have crucial thermal management considerations, with varying
rently utilised and emerging strategies for thermal management approaches from manufacturers and emerging alternatives, all of
across the electric vehicle market. In addition to the batteries, the which are addressed in this brand new report.
electric motors, power electronics and vehicle charging stations
Machine learning slashes battery fast charging
scheme development time
By Nick Flaherty
R
esearchers from Stanford University, MIT and the Toyota In a previous study, the researchers found that instead of
Research Institute in the US have used machine learning charging and recharging every battery until it failed – the usual
to cut the fast charging time for electric vehicle and ener- way of testing a battery’s lifetime –they could predict how long
gy storage batteries dramatically. The group initially tested their a battery would last after only its first 100 charging cycles. This
method on battery charge speed, and said it can be applied to is because the machine learning system, after being trained on
numerous other parts of the battery development pipeline and a few batteries cycled to failure, could find patterns in the early
even to non-energy technologies. data that determined how long the cell would last.
“In battery testing, you have to try a massive number of Machine learning then reduced the number of methods
things, because the performance they had to test. Instead of testing
you get will vary drastically,” said every possible charging method
Stefano Ermon, an assistant pro- equally, or relying on intuition, the
fessor of computer science. “With computer learned from its experi-
AI, we’re able to quickly identify the ences to quickly find the best
most promising approaches and protocols to test. By testing fewer
cut out a lot of unnecessary experi- methods for fewer cycles, the team
ments.” quickly found an optimal ultra-fast-
The researchers wrote a ma- charging protocol for their battery.
chine learning framework that, In addition to dramatically speeding
based on only a few charging up the testing process, the solution
cycles, predicted how batteries was also better, and much more
would respond to different charg- unusual, than what a battery sci-
ing approaches. The software also entist would likely have devised. “It
decided in real time what fast charging approaches to focus on gave us this surprisingly simple charging protocol – something
or ignore. By reducing both the length and number of trials, the we didn’t expect,” said Ermon. “That’s the difference between
researchers cut the testing process from almost two years to 16 a human and a machine: The machine is not biased by human
days. intuition, which is powerful but sometimes misleading.”
“We figured out how to greatly accelerate the testing process The researchers said their approach could accelerate nearly
for extreme fast charging,” said Peter Attia, who co-led the every piece of the battery development pipeline: from design-
study while he was a graduate student. “What’s really exciting, ing the chemistry of a battery to determining its size and shape,
though, is the method. We can apply this approach to many to finding better systems for manufacturing and storage. This
other problems that, right now, are holding back battery devel- would have broad implications not only for electric vehicles but
opment for months or years.” for other types of energy storage. “This is a new way of doing
Fast charging optimization uses many trial-and-error battery development,” said Patrick Herring, co-author of the
tests, something that is inefficient for humans, but the perfect study and a scientist at the Toyota Research Institute. “Having
problem for a machine. “Machine learning is trial-and-error, but data that you can share among a large number of people in aca-
in a smarter way,” said Aditya Grover, a graduate student in demia and industry, and that is automatically analyzed, enables
computer science who also co-led the study. “Computers are much faster innovation.”
far better than us at figuring out when to explore – try new and The study’s machine learning and data collection system will
different approaches – and when to exploit, or zero in, on the be made available for future battery scientists to freely use, he
most promising ones.” added.
www.eenewseurope.com eeNews Europe April 2020 News 13NEWS & TECHNOLOGY BATTERIES
Three team for EV battery recycling cluster in Finland
By Nick Flaherty
F
ortum, BASF, and Nornickel have signed a letter of intent developed by its partners to supply its planned battery materi-
to plan a battery recycling cluster in Harjavalta, Finland, als precursor plant in Harjavalta, Finland.
serving the electric vehicle market. This would enable a “The combination of battery materials production and
“closed loop” cluster of companies to re-use the critical met- recycling enables the circular economy by closing the loop,”
als in used batteries. said Tim Ingle, Vice President, Precious Metals Refining,
Using metals from recycled batteries significantly reduces Chemicals & Battery Recycling at BASF. “To drive electrification,
the environmental impact of producing of electric vehicles, we are focused on bringing solutions for high energy density
and there are additional benefits from using electricity from cathode active materials and high efficiency lithium extraction
renewable sources in Finland for the for battery recycling.”
recycling process itself. The aim is to create a cluster of ex-
“By recycling valuable metals in pertise in materials and technologies.
lithium-ion batteries we reduce the “A modern recycling unit next to
environmental impact of electric car Nornickel Harjavalta would further
batteries by complementing the sup- strengthen its position as one of the
ply of cobalt, nickel and other critical most sustainable nickel refineries
metals from primary sources. Through in the world. This setup is ideal for
our previous acquisition of a Finnish sustainable processing of two of the
growth company Crisolteq, an expert main metals used in Li-ion batteries.
in low CO2 hydrometallurgical pro- Development of recycling solutions
cessing, we are very proud that Fortum is now able to increase will not only support Nornickel’s strategy of further lowering its
the recovery rate of valuable materials in lithium-ion batteries CO2 footprint and improving sustainability, but it is also essential
from half to over 80 per cent,” said Tero Holländer, Head of to enable the industry to meet the growing demand of critical
Business Development, Fortum Recycling and Waste. metals in the electric vehicle sector,” says Joni Hautojärvi, Man-
BASF intends to use recycled materials from the processes aging Director, Nornickel Harjavalta.
Toyota develops fuel cell truck with Hino
By Christoph Hammerschmidt
T
oyota Motor Corp. is now developing a fuel cell truck: In that drives an electric motor. The only emission produced is
cooperation with Hino Motors, the commercial vehicle water vapor. When the tank is empty, the hydrogen containers
specialist within the Toyota Group, a 25-tonne truck is be- can be refilled within a few minutes. Market observers see this
ing built that will cover around 600 kilometres without emitting capability as a major advantage over battery vehicles, which
CO2 or pollutants. The technical basis is provided by the drive usually take several hours to recharge. The challenge with fuel
system from the Toyota Mirai sedan. cell technology, on the other hand, is to make the high-pressure
Electrification is particularly important in heavy-duty traf- tanks stable and leak-proof. A tank with a pressure of Mega-
fic: in Japan alone, heavy trucks are responsible for around 60 Pascal (MPa) will be built for the fuel cell truck.
percent of the CO2 emissions of commercial vehicles; in other Toyota and Hino are thus taking the next step: Both compa-
countries the situation is not much different. The challenge is to nies have been researching fuel cell technology for more than
reconcile economy, sustain- 15 years and see hydrogen as
ability and practical benefits. an important energy source
The trucks, which are often of the future. Already in 2003
used over long distances, Toyota and Hino have jointly
must offer sufficient range developed and tested a fuel
and load capacity, while at cell bus. In the future, both
the same time not being able companies will further deepen
to make long refuelling stops. their partnership and acceler-
For this reason, Toyota and ate their efforts to realize a
Hino are relying on the fuel hydrogen society.
cell drive and the high energy Fuel cell technology and
density of hydrogen. its introduction in freight
The chassis of the fuel cell transport will make an im-
truck based on the Hino Pro- portant contribution to the
fia was adapted for this type of drive. Extensive weight savings companies’ ambitious sustainability goals: As part of the Toyota
enable a high loading capacity. Thanks to two fuel cell stacks, Environmental Challenge 2050, the Japanese mobility company
which have already been developed for the next generation of intends to significantly reduce its CO2 emissions. For example,
the Toyota Mirai, the range is expected to be 600 kilometers. fleet emissions are to be reduced by 90 percent by 2050 com-
In driving mode, hydrogen is converted into electrical energy pared to 2010. Emissions in production will also be minimized.
14 News April 2020 @eeNewsEurope www.eenewseurope.com90°
NEWS & TECHNOLOGY COVID-19
Covid-19 brings car production
in Europe to a halt
By Christoph Hammerschmidt
T
he coronavirus has sent large parts of the European auto- crisis and have had to interrupt some of their production.
mobile production into a coma. It is unclear how this will This abrupt standstill of an entire industry also sends shock
affect the electronics supply chain. waves throughout the supply chain. How are the suppliers to
On Wednesday afternoon this week, Porsche announced the automotive industry dealing with this?
that it will suspend production - initially for two weeks. The According to a report in the Automotive News Europe news-
sports car manufacturer was paper, the major tier 1 suppliers Bosch, Continen-
thus the last in a series of tal, Valeo and ZF Friedrichhafen announced on
automotive OEMs to stop Tuesday afternoon that all their production facilities
production for the time be- would continue to operate unchanged. However,
ing. The reason in all cases all these companies said that these plans would
was to protect the workforce change as soon as their customers, the car manu-
from the corona virus. At facturers, reduced their orders.
the same time, the carmak- If you ask in detail, you usually get trivial an-
ers are also reacting to the swers. In many cases, the companies are afraid of
slump in demand as a result giving away something that could have an impact
of the pandemic - because on the stock price. Continental, for example, left an
of the virus, customers inquiry from eeNews Europe unanswered. Accord-
around the world are hesitat- ing to press reports, however, the company regards
ing to buy a new car. the temporary closure of factories as “last resort,
Before Porsche, BMW implemented only in extreme cases”.
had also announced on As an unlisted company, Bosch can afford to
Wednesday the suspension of production in its European plants be more open. In response to a request from eeNews Europe,
as well as in its factory in Rosslyn (South Africa). BMW plans to the company informed that it was currently investigating the
halt its assembly lines for four weeks. The day before, Daim- situation together with its customers. “At this point in time, we
ler had already ordered a temporary stop of its production in are largely able to maintain production and our supply chains
Europe; not only cars, but also the production lines for vans and and meet the needs of our customers. This also applies to our
commercial vehicles will be affected. semiconductor production,” explained a Bosch spokesman.
Daimler is in good company with this measure. Starting this However, he added that the situation was “dynamic” and could
Thursday, Volkswagen plans to shut down its assembly plants change rapidly.
in Germany, Portugal, Slovakia and Spain for an initial period The lighting and radar specialist Hella reduced its profit tar-
of two weeks. The Spanish VW subsidiary Seat had already gets in a press release as a result of the pandemic. The compa-
ordered this the day before, Audi plans to follow suit until the ny also announced that short-time working was being prepared
weekend. Only Skoda will continue production for the time be- at certain locations.
ing, albeit on a limited scale. Semiconductor manufacturers, as tier 2 suppliers to the
Toyota is suspending the production of cars in its European automotive industry, have also been affected by the produc-
plants for an indefinite period of time. Factories in France, tion closures. However, they are extremely cautious about the
UK, Czech Republic, Poland and Turkey are affected. Ford is effects of the downstream production stops. NXP, one of the
suspending operations at its production plants in Germany, largest chip suppliers to the automotive industry, had already
Romania and Spain for “a few weeks”, it says. Initially until 27 lowered its sales targets by 5% at the beginning of the month
March, the PSA group (Peugeot, Citroen, Opel, Vauxhall) is because of the corona virus. “We cannot comment at this time
suspending all its production in France, Spain, Poland, the UK, beyond our press release issued earlier this month,” a company
Portugal and Slovakia. Competitor Renault stops assembly for spokesperson said. STMicroelectronics announced earlier that
“a few days”. Fiat Chrysler stops its plants in Italy; Nissan does it keeps on working in Italy despite the massive lockdown in
the same in the UK. that country.
Have we forgotten anyone? Oh yes, Jaguar Land Rover: Renesas, another big player in the automotive electronics
Magna, the contract manufacturer that among other things, arena, makes the following preventive restrictions: “IF eeNews
assembles Jaguar’s electric model I-Pace in Austria, is sending source of information about production stops is NOT based
its workers on a compulsory break until the end of March. And, on the companies’ official statements or press releases, our
finally, Volvo’s production is also affected: While the factory in statement will simply be “we would like to refrain from making
Gothenburg (Sweden) continues to operate for the time being, comments on speculations in the reports”. Well, that the reports
the company is closing its production in Ghent (Belgium) for an about production stops are no speculation should become
indefinite period. immediately clear when looking at the media. Thus, Renesas is
In addition to the corona virus, there is another reason why making a statement on the matter: „As corona virus situation is
many manufacturers would not be able to continue production changing on a daily basis, we are communicating and confirm-
even if they wanted to: In many cases, supplier parts are now ing the situation at each of our customer. We will continue to
missing, because the car manufacturers’ suppliers are also in closely monitor market trends in our business areas and the
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