About Automotive Electronics and its History

Automotive Electronics automotive accessories, car electronics

Automotive electronics refers to all electronic components that are utilised in cars, such as the radio, car computers, telematics, in-car entertainment systems, and engine control. Trucks, motorbikes, off-road vehicles, and other internal combustion powered equipment like forklifts, tractors, and excavators also have ignition, engine, and transmission electronics. Electric and hybrid vehicles both have similar components for controlling pertinent electrical systems.

History

Since 1950, when they made up only about 1% of an automobile's value, electronic systems have grown to make up over 30% of the cost of a car. Power electronics are used in modern electric vehicles to operate the main propulsion engine and the battery system.

Vacuum tube car radios, which first appeared in the early 1930s, were the earliest electronic systems that could be purchased as factory installations. With the advent of solid-state diodes and the first transistorised ignition systems around 1955, the usage of electronics in automobiles was considerably increased by the discovery of semiconductors after World War II.

In the 1970s, a number of automotive applications became commercially viable thanks to the development of MOS integrated circuit (MOS IC) semiconductors and microprocessors. The use of MOS large-scale integration (LSI) chips for a variety of automotive electronic applications, such as a transmission control unit (TCU), adaptive cruise control (ACC), alternators, automatic headlight dimmers, electric fuel pumps, etc., was first proposed in 1971 by Fairchild Semiconductor and RCA Laboratories.

Significant improvements in the field of electric vehicle technology were made possible by the power MOSFET and the micro controller, a kind of single-chip microprocessor. While single-chip micro controllers could handle every aspect of drive control and had the capability for battery management, MOSFET power converters permitted operation at considerably higher switching rates, made it simpler to drive, reduced power losses, and significantly cut pricing. Vehicles make use of MOSFETs. The electronic control unit uses MOSFETs (ECU). The average mid-range passenger car contained an estimated $100–200 worth of power semiconductors in 2000; for electric and hybrid cars, this amount could have increased by a factor of 3-5. Over 50 actuators are commonly controlled by power MOSFETs or other power semiconductor devices, and the average car as of 2017 has over that number.