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Date:31st May 2012
Automotive semiconductor growth influenced
by GPUs, says IMS
IMS Research (acquired by IHS Inc) forecasts that dedicated
graphics processing units (GPUs) are increasingly widespread
in automotive instrument clusters and infotainment systems.
The findings reported by IMS includes:
This uptake of technology and the associated silicon will
drive semiconductor revenue growth, with the combined instrument
cluster and infotainment semiconductor market reaching an
estimated $8 billion by 2018, according to the leading automotive
semiconductor study, The world market for semiconductors
in OEM Automotive Electronic Systems - 2012 edition.
There is a trend towards more liquid crystal display (LCD)
screens for infotainment head units and purely digital instrument
clusters as production costs decrease. Some vehicle original
equipment manufacturers (OEMs) are choosing dedicated GPUs
to display complex images like Google Earth Live or 3D representations
of the vehicle on the instrument cluster. Around the GPU,
there will be other silicon including 32-bit microcontrollers,
light-emitting diodes (LEDs) etc.
NVIDIA's Tegra platform is already found in some premium
vehicles, to provide dedicated graphics processing. "The
Tegra platform is a complete SoC which uses an embedded
ARM CPU with a GeForce GPU for audio, video and imaging;
making it a whole multimedia centre," explains IMS
Research Automotive market analyst, Ben Scott.
Consumer habits and opinions are also driving this trend.
"There is a huge demand for vehicle manufacturers to
recreate the experiences that consumers receive from their
phones. This fast multimedia experience with interactivity
and apps is something that requires significant processor
horsepower," adds Scott.
These types of GPUs are expected to move into C-segment
vehicles within the next five years, but are quite costly
to the OEM. However, these powerful System-on-Chips can
also be used for driver assistance, negating the need for
a field-programmable gate array (FPGA).
Author: Srinivasa Reddy N
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