A Long-Range Look at Semiconductor Development And Its Impact on Automotive Electronics

To ensure cost-effectiveness, automotive industry solid-state device requirements, a small percentage of total U.S. consumption, will be met through custom designs using technologies applicable to non-automotive applications as well. N-MOS and complementary-MOS technologies with their cost and performance advantages and smaller size will prevail in digital signal processing; bipolar IC's plus IC's combining bipolar and MOS technologies on the same chip will be used for linear signal processing. Multiple-epitaxial structured silicon power devices will be used as actuator drivers. The reliability/cost equation will be solved by using buffered power sources to permit use of custom-designed low-voltage IC signal-processing circuits. Power devices having device characteristics that can withstand the high voltage transients will provide the interface between the low-level signal processing and actuator drivers. As the number of applications increases, both power devices and IC's will be packaged in plastic packages as operating environments permit and basic die-construction improvements are effected.