AVIVA Links Inc., the automotive connectivity company enabling the most advanced multi-gigabit links for in-vehicle networks, and Murata, a global market leading manufacturer and supplier of automotive inductors and ferrite beads, today announced the successful implementation of an Automotive SerDes Alliance (ASA)-compliant energy efficient PoC solution for automotive sensor applications. This achievement will deliver significant reductions in PoC solution size while increasing overall power delivery performance, enabling automotive manufacturers to design lighter, more energy efficient, and lower cost vehicles in the near future.

“The explosion of cameras and sensors is increasing the number of links and harness weights to unprecedented levels, forcing automotive manufacturers to look for new ways to reduce the number of cables impacting the weight and space in the vehicle,” said Kamal Dalmia, CEO, AVIVA Links Inc.  “While PoC solutions with existing technologies eliminate the need for separate power cables, a TDD based ASA-compliant solution is absolutely critical for OEMs to further reduce the weight and meet the energy efficiency goals for the next generation of intelligent vehicles.” 

The AVIVA and Murata Collaboration

AVIVA’s highly integrated SerDes devices are based on the ASA Motion Link (ASA-ML) technology that uses Time Division Duplexing (TDD) to transmit ultra-high bandwidth video and data, enabling highest resolution cameras, LiDARs, radars, and other sensors. TDD-based transmission enables highly efficient PoC solutions at reduced costs. Due to the non-overlap of signals in the forward and reverse directions at any given point in time, the received data is not impacted by echoes of the transmitted data. This leads to significantly relaxed Return Loss (RL) limits on the nodes compared with existing SerDes solutions, which in turn allows for the use of smaller and cheaper inductors with lower saturation currents, while still meeting the power delivery and link performance requirements.

“Delivering a highly efficient PoC solution, while significantly exceeding the performance, power, solution size, and cost metrics of the more traditional solutions in use today, has been the critical piece needed to extend the use of power over cable beyond low power sensors to higher power sensors and even some display applications,” said David Gannon, director of mobility sales, Murata Americas. “Copper wiring is estimated to be the third highest weight component in a typical car and being able to reduce that significantly opens the door to add new features and functionality that was simply not possible in today’s vehicles.”   

AVIVA and Murata have demonstrated a PoC Proof of Concept that can deliver up to 700mA of current from the ECU to the sensor through a Coax cable, using a single 3.2 x 2.5 x 2.3 mm inductor and 0402 Ferrite bead. The PoC was implemented in parallel with an error free ASA link running at SG3 (8 Gb/s) from AVIVA’s Serializer to Deserializer boards. In addition, the combination of lower power consumption and better RL, also enables the use of power over cable beyond low power sensors to future display applications.

The AVIVA Solution

AVIVA’s scalable portfolio of ICs and software stacks will enable OEMs to develop highly optimized solutions, while significantly exceeding the performance, power and solution size metrics of the more traditional solutions in use today. Key features of the chipset include:

• High Throughput – AVIVA’s Quad port device is the industry’s first AS-based chipset delivering an aggregate throughput of more than 64 Gb/s.
• Highest Link Speed – Quad port devices support an aggregated bandwidth of 64 Gb/s, with up to 16 G line rate per port.
• Lowest Power Consumption – TDD PHY architecture reduces the power consumption per gigabit to less than half compared to other standards-based solutions, enabling smaller camera and sensor modules with better thermals.
• Highest Reliability Links – Non-overlapping signals and forward error correction ensure highly robust links with excellent signal-to-noise ratios. This eliminates the need for re-transmission and ensures the lowest deterministic latency.