Interview with Roland Steger, Business Development Manager of Melexis, a leading company in microelectronic solutions for automotive, home automation, industrial, and medical applications.
DVN Interior: What does the chip shortage crisis mean for Melexis?
Roland Steger: For a number of months, the press has been full of news about general chip shortages and there are multiple reasons for this. First of all, we see an increased need for semiconductors in general as we are doing more and more online: online meetings, shopping, gaming, cloud computing, etc. Furthermore, we see the supply chain bullwhip effect in full action. This inventory acceleration phenomenon describes how inventories fluctuate more heavily the more you move upstream in the supply chain. As the automotive supply chain is notoriously long and extremely global involving lots of different tiers, the bullwhip effect creates often more havoc there than in less complex value chains. We observe that everything was pulled dry in inventory in Q2 2020 and we now see a massive demand surge to poise the lines again. Clearly these inventory effects have been aggravated by the Covid-19 and hoarding behavior.
At Melexis, we are acting on many fronts to increase capacity in order to serve our customers and keep our commitments. In 2020, we decided to increase our inventories against all customer and market signals at that time. We were convinced that the bullwhip effect was playing and we therefore calculated our Months of Supply against future demand and not against the forecasts and orders we had from our customers at that time. That actually prevented worse for Q4 2020 and Q1 2021. But it was not enough. Today we allocate a share of our available material to all customers and market combinations. Main goal is to keep most lines running at best, and especially to avoid line-downs at the automakers.
At the same time, we continue to invest using our normal processes for floorspace expansions and Capex investments. Our enlarged manufacturing facility in Sofia is finalized and the first machines have been transferred to the new building in April. We continuously invest in handlers and testers to increase our overall test capacity. During the COVID-19 pandemic and the current order spikes, we work with our people to keep morale and engagement high in spite of the stressful times. We equally engage with our suppliers to structurally increase capacity and flexibility through dual sourcing. We work closely with our customers to avoid line downs and to improve visibility for the longer term. At the same time, we are keeping a close eye on the overall market situation in order to react timely when the overheating corrects itself.
DVN-I: Melexis is already involved in interior sensing (seat, belt, temperature, lighting); Is the interior an important domain for your technologies?
RS: Every year more cars enter the market with interiors that look like living rooms. Driver and passenger monitoring systems are emulating an “emotional intelligence,” enabling the car to proactively respond to the user’s mood by adjusting for example the ambient lighting or music—or even the smell of the vehicle. Biometric technology allows everyone inside the car to be identified. This gives each person access to his or her own content, settings, or cloud-based services. Digital assistants provide guidance. Cars are equipped with a wide range of sensors, in-cabin cameras and radars.
Further down the line, concept autonomous cars display interiors that have been turned into complete gaming consoles: seating vibrations, air conditioning, and fragrance infusion are all part of the game environment and stimulate perceptions. Other cockpits look more like a wellness spa, with seats that move, pivot and recline according to users’ perceived needs (“Seat As A Service!”). The cockpit of the car will be driven by what people’s activity inside the car.
Melexis provides innovative micro-electronic semiconductor solutions to enable the cockpit of the future. We focus on lighting with our LIN RGB solutions, occupant and in-cabin monitoring with our Time-of-flight technology, seat control with our motor driver solutions enabling multiple possibilities thanks to the inherent technology and sensor flexibility. Seat position adjustment with latch & switch also comes as a PCB-less version, making it a plug & play solution.
Melexis sets the market reference solution for seat belt buckle detection with its 2-wire latch & switch. This proves it is still possible to enhance such sensors, in this case by offering lateral sensing features solving mechanical constraints.
SEAT MASSAGE
The development of car seats relieving the strain for drivers and passengers traveling long distances is becoming a key competitive advantage. This is particularly important as low back pain is one of the most frequent and disabling conditions affecting people today. More attention is thus being given to seat form, noise, odor, and user friendliness. Massage seats are being introduced to further increase the level of comfort in the car. Lumbar massage, when properly done, decreases low back muscle activity and increases blood circulation, which together can reduce the risk of low back pain. MelexisPressure Sensor ICs enable comfort features in the cockpit such as seat lumbar applications.
SEAT FAN
With the increase in the number of powerful GPUs in the cockpit—such as for data processing and for cameras—there is an increasing demand for seat fans to keep occupants cool. HVAC systems have to support air purifiers. Melexis offers solutions in these areas too, especially with its state-of-the-art all-in-one Single-Coil Fan and Pump Driver ICs.
Active real-time Driver Monitoring Systems (DMS) use sensors in the steering wheel or an inward-facing camera to track driver alertness and help ensure the driver stays engaged during vehicle operation. This safety feature alerts the driver to signs of drowsiness or distraction—a crucial functionality for autonomous vehicles. If the system detects signs of distraction, it repeatedly prompts the driver via visual and audible warnings, seat vibrations, or small auto-braking events. The driver can then restore full control of the vehicle and rest if needed.
Some manufacturers use a Child/Passenger Monitoring system that gives front-seat passengers and the driver a view of what’s going on in the back seats on the center display. Other applications include driver identification and authentication; heart rate measurement; head position tracking; eye position tracking; and driver impairment level detection. These technology innovations contribute to the more robust safety solutions needed for the next generation of autonomous driving functions.
THE SEATING EXPERIENCE
Comfortable yet fully functional seating is an essential component of the cockpit of the future. Innovations are constantly coming to market, offering improved comfort, new materials and autonomous technologies. Indeed, manufacturers are now regarding the “car seat” as a somewhat old-fashioned term, replacing it with the “seating experience.” The aim is to offer something comparable to a first-class airline chair.
DRIVING CONTROL & COMMANDS (HMI)
CONTROL KNOB
Gesture control does not necessarily mean the demise of the humble control knob. Reinvented and renamed as a “multifunction controller”, the latest control knobs work in parallel with touchscreen technology. They can be pressed, twisted and nudged to control the climate system, audio settings, volume and a host of other uses. The same technology can be used to control joystick type of motion such as the Melexis multi-function stalk indicators. Melexis’ Automotive 3D Magnetometer (magnetic field sensor) supports cockpit HMI applications such as stalk indicators or e-knob control.
BUTTON CONTROL
With a complete portfolio of cockpit Latches & Switches including lateral sensing solutions, Melexis supports all the buttons surrounding a driver, including safety critical ones such as:
- Headlamp switch
- Driver’s hand adjustment
- Interface button on the wheel (thumb-wheel button)
- Sun visor position detection
- Stalk-end position direction
- Deactivations.
- …
STEERING WHEEL
In the immediate future, even fully autonomous vehicles will still be equipped with a steering column and steering wheel. In this area, Melexis magnetic position sensor ICs are suitable for a range of applications. These include position sensing for brake or accelerator pedal, and E-steering which also requires torque sensing with magnetic linear Hall sensors.
TRANSMISSION
A recent innovation is a rotary controller that replaces the shift lever, the traditional control wheel, and a bank of buttons. Such an automatic transmission shifter solution (lever, knob and stub type) is possible with Triaxis® Magnetic Position Sensors. These all reduce the integration efforts and enable a smaller solution by removing the need for a big lever if desired.
DVN-I: How will your technologies influence the interior thermal management?
RS: An important factor to our comfort is obviously the cockpit temperature. In an ideal case the car should monitor and adjust the temperature automatically, which is possible using Melexis Contactless Infrared Sensors. To ensure the optimum temperature, thermal management is key, especially in electric vehicles which no longer benefit from the engine heat. Positive Temperature Coefficient (PTC) heaters are therefore added to not only maintain the battery at an optimum temperature (for efficiency purposes), but also to provide heat for driver and passengers. Melexis enables this technology with the use of innovative Integrated Current Sensors.
DVN-I: Driver Monitoring System will be key to manage safe transition in L2. How could it be applied today, as drowsiness and hypo-vigilance are already major safety issues?
Time-of-flight (ToF) technology enables new functionalities like monitoring driver tiredness, eye gaze, and hands-on-wheel, as well as vehicle occupancy (seat belt detection, child left behind). The ToF cameras have many advantages. They work at day and night. They provide high distance accuracy, sunlight invariance and sunlight robustness. And they operate at fast speeds of up to 135 (distance) frames per second. Moreover, direct output of the 3D depth information requires less image processing for calculating the distance information, leading to smaller processors for image processing. With either infrared single point thermometer or infrared sensor array, Melexis enables solutions in the cockpit such as the HVAC system adapting automatically to the temperature of the driver.
Melexis has developed its optical ToF technology for a range of cockpit applications. By 2019, Melexis had shipped more than one million ToF sensor ICs for interior sensing. And we see a rapidly growing interest from automakers and Tier 1s as ToF technology enables many interior sensing use cases.
GESTURE CONTROL
Gesture control can play a significant role in reducing the probability of causing a distraction-related accident because it minimizes the need for a driver to take their eyes off the road. Applications currently using simple hand gestures in high-end cars include answering a phone call, changing the radio channel or volume, scrolling through the menu, zooming the navigation screen, playing the next song, opening or closing the sunroof, or operating interior lighting. A 3D ToF Camera is essential to facilitate gesture control. In 2019 and 2020 Melexis launched its third generation automotive qualified 3D ToF sensor ICs which has since then been adopted by premium OEMs.
DVN-I: What opportunities can you create into interior design with your embedded lighting solutions?
RS: Interior lighting can bring comfort as well as vital safety features to cars, especially for autonomous driving. Without direct control of the car, the occupant’s focus will obviously not be on the road. Smart lighting therefore has a key role to play in supporting the communication of the car to its occupant. The cockpit will, for example, quickly turn the interior lights to red to communicate danger, immediately catching the attention of the driver. Development of interior lighting is taking place in a number of directions. And it’s a fast-growing space. One premium manufacturer is predicting a tenfold increase in lighting elements in the car in the near future.
Static Ambient Lighting and Slowly Animated Lighting applications are being standardized in every vehicle. Little used areas for lighting that are now “seeing the light” include the floor, smart décor trims, cupholders, climate control vents, and the surfaces of textiles. Melexis offers Local Interconnect Network (LIN) products capable of driving multiple LEDs and simplifying the overall design.
Taking the concept one step further is highly animated lighting. This can be integrated into driver assistance systems to visually provide information or reinforce warnings. An animated red light could warn of an impending collision. If a cyclist is approaching a stationary car, the vehicle could rapidly flash red interior lights on a door panel strip to warn its drivers and passengers before opening a door. For such applications, Melexis has developed the Melexis Light Bus (MeLiBu™). This is a high-speed, low-bill-of-materials, robust automotive communication system. It enables applications with high RGB-LED counts for highly animated light animations within cars. The MeLiBu technology is already being adopted by leading global car manufacturers in order to enhance the safety features of their newest models.
Multicolor ambient lightingis becoming more popular. In parallel, the number of LEDs as well as the car constraints are increasing, which makes the automaker’s job of system integration much more difficult. Melexis is working closely with automakers to provide a scalable solution that supports low-end up to high-end cars as well as addressing the development challenges.
DVN-I: How are you working with automakers and tier-1s?
RS: Melexis is big enough to serve, but small enough to care. Of course, we serve automakers worldwide and the (new) suppliers along the value chain. Technological innovation doesn’t happen in isolation. It happens by talking to customers, understanding their needs and concerns and translating them into products. It is this customer centered approach that has been the fundament of our success.
With our immediate tier-1 customers, we work with established key account management teams, sales teams and sales support teams following international standards (DIN ISO TS16949).
Due to recent developments in the value chain, vehicle makers and IC-suppliers are moving more closely to each other in terms of supplier-customer relationships. Melexis caters to that with a dedicated OEM Business Development Team. This team works closely with major global automakers. It gives us the opportunity to identify upcoming trends and requirements in an early stage. This ensures we deliver technically and commercially competitive solutions in due course.
