Samsung Reinforces Automotive Memory Solutions

As the electric vehicle market continues to develop, solutions that meet its innovative requirements continue to advance. This time, Samsung  introduces an extensive lineup of cutting-edge automotive memory solutions designed for next-generation autonomous electric vehicles.

The evolving architecture for cars has a main centralized processor with a large memory configuration similar to a standard computer. This unit processes and makes systemic decisions based on information from all driver's assistance, engine and drive train subsystems.

But, with the recent proliferation of electric vehicles and the rapid advancement of infotainment and autonomous driving systems, the semiconductor automotive platform is facing a paradigm shift. “What used to be a seven to eight-year replacement cycle is now being compressed into a three to four-year cycle, and at the same time, performance and capacity requirements are advancing to levels commonly found in servers,” said Jinman Han, Executive Vice President and Head of Memory Global Sales & Marketing, Samsung Electronics.

The need for additional more sophisticated memory for cars is also responding to security and safety needs. More sensors produce more data, which has to be processed, transported  and stored in the vehicles.  As cars become Big Data generators, car-borne data storage is becoming a vital aspect for cars, trucks, and lorries. Therefore, the design of their memory systems needs to provide strong encryption and privacy protection.

The continuous development and evolution of automotive memory are also pivotal to cope with the high security standards that the industry continues to impose. “Adhering to these standards will lead to better quality, higher efficiency, and lower failure rates,” explains SK Hynix.

Samsung’s announcement on the reinforcement of their memory lines includes a 256-gigabyte (GB) PCIe Gen3 NVMe ball grid array (BGA) SSD, 2GB GDDR6 DRAM and 2GB DDR4 DRAM for high-performance infotainment systems, as well as 2GB GDDR6 DRAM and 128GB Universal Flash Storage (UFS) for autonomous driving systems. Nevertheless, Samsung is not alone in this innovative field.

With a growing competitive market, there are other major competitors in development and continuous integration of new technological advancement in the Data Storage industry of the Automotive sector. These include Western Digital, Seagate, Dell, IBM, Nvidia and Kioxia, according to an analysis by Mobility Foresights. “These companies are extensively involved in development of new library structures and improvised integration techniques within the onboard system of automobiles to have better levels of compliance to requirements,” reported the analysis. 

As tech solutions continue to advance, speed capabilities such as 5G will bring (over 100 Megabits per second, Mbps), “working in the cloud will be as working in the internal memory of a computer," explains Ricardo Anaya, Product Manager, Qualcomm. Network latency, which refers to the time it takes for data to travel from one place to another, is essential for the automotive industry as it will enable “remote decision making” in autonomous processes. 5G offers an extremely low latency rate, said Anaya. "This migration will enable millions of devices to be connected.”