Date: 20th July 2010
DIANA to research on improving electronics
capabilities in automotives
AUDI AG, Continental AG, Infineon AG, ZMD AG and Infineon
have come together to start the DIANA research project.
This project headed by Infineon will be researching ways
to improve the analytic and diagnostic capabilities of electronic
control units (ECU) in motor vehicles. Through to 2013,
the four partners will work on ways to make error detection
more precise and faults easier to rectify for automakers
and repair shops. The project partners will be assisted
by several research organizations and universities.
"DIANA" is a German acronym that translates as
"end-to-end diagnostic capabilities in semiconductor
components and systems for analyzing persistent and sporadic
errors in automobiles". The project is to receive roughly
Euro 4.8 million in support from Germany's Federal Ministry
of Education and Research (BMBF) as part of the government's
high-tech strategy and Information and Communications Technology
2020 program (IKT 2020). Automobiles and mobility have been
defined as two of the key focuses of IKT 2020 with the aim
of improving the robustness of automotive electronics.
To achieve project goals, the quality control measures
that are currently employed in the semiconductor industry
will be applied to the automobile as a system. This will
enable relevant information on possible malfunctions occurring
during operation to be retrieved directly from the semiconductor
components and reported to higher-level system components
in an ECU. The ECU can then process the operating data collected
for diagnostic purposes to inform the driver on the status
of the vehicle and provide mechanics in repair shops with
a detailed diagnostic report. This kind of end-to-end diagnostic
capability, which has not been implemented in cars as yet,
will require close collaboration along the entire automotive-industry
value chain, from semiconductor manufacturers to the suppliers
of electronic control systems and automobile makers.
The outcomes of the DIANA project will be incorporated
into automotive electronics products from 2015. If the test
routines prove a success in motor vehicles, they can be
employed in other areas of application where safety is critical.
The four project partners will be assisted by a number
of research organizations and universities based in Germany:
the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits in Dresden,
the University of the Federal Armed Forces in Munich, and
the Universities of Cottbus, Erlangen-Nuremberg, and Stuttgart.
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