AUTOMOTIVE

Vol. 4 Oct. 2007

COMPILATION
Atmel’s 2nd Generation LIN Transceiver, LIN System Basis Chip,
and System-in-Package Solutions
Page 14

Superior and Safe Overtaking with Dynamic Pass Prediction

Page 58

Image Processing for Addressing Challeng-

Automotive Safety ing Antenna Designs Atmel’s Automo-
Applications Using with Atmel’s Antenna tive Serial EEPROM
AVR32 Processors Amplifiers Products
Page 50 Page 4 Page 66
 Atmel Automotive Compilation, Vol. 4

EDITORIAL
In this fourth installment of automo- ANTARIS®4 GPS chipset, which is exception. The digitalization of both
tive compilation, we are delighted widely employed in navigation sys- audio and video broadcasting in
once again to present a range of arti- tems, has been used at the proto- automotives is supported by Atmel’s
cles created by the people that make type stage in BMW ’s Dynamic Pass
®
full DAB solution including front-end,
our products happen. Atmel® strives Predication system, which indicates baseband, and software (page 36).
to create and pioneer electronic road sections that are unsafe for
solutions for the constantly evolving overtaking. Details of this new driver Atmel continues to shape the future
automotive industry, and with this assistance system can be read on of the automobile by providing inno-
publication, we welcome the chance page 58. While supporting these rev- vative solutions. As LIN is now firmly
to share some of our innovative auto- olutionary safety applications, Atmel established as a low-cost networking
motive solutions with you. continues to pioneer advancements solution, we have recently released
in existing automotive safety solu- our 2nd generation LIN family (page
Technological advancements in elec- tions. Our ultra low-power smart RF 14). With this modular collection of
tronics are revolutionizing automotive microtransmitter ICs and our AVR LIN devices, designed in Atmel’s
safety, and Atmel’s ICs are playing an microcontroller combine to form a well-proven high-voltage BCD-on-
intrinsic part in these solutions. Our long-lasting battery-driven telemet- SOI process technology, automotive
AVR 32-bit microcontroller, with its
®
ric solution, perfect for tire pressure suppliers can build extremely robust
high-processing rate, is a perfect monitoring systems (page 42). and low-cost vehicle networking
match for computational-intensive applications (page 20).
image-processing applications. Its Car antennas are increasingly seen
implementation in an advance lane as an intrinsic element of car design, With this volume we not only intro-
departure system is described in and our antenna amplifier ICs are duce exciting new solutions, but also
detail on page 50. Our AVR 8-bit directly addressing this challenging celebrate over a decade of Atmel’s
flash microcontroller also forms the design trend, without compromising AEC-Q100-qualified EEPROM (page
cornerstone of an anti-pinch system on reception performance (page 4). 66). We boast industry’s broadest
for the control of power-operated The digital revolution and the subse- EEPROM product portfolio.
automotive windows in accordance quent advancement of multimedia
with safety standards MCSS118 entertainment is seen in every facet Please enjoy our fourth edition of
and 74/60/EEC (page 55). Atmel’s of modern life. The automobile is no Atmel’s Automotive Compilation.

Dr. Matthias Kästner

Senior Director Marketing
RF & Automotive Business Unit
 www.atmel.com 

BODY ELECTRONICS
26 Replacing Mechanical Wiper Systems with a Semiconductor Solution
55 Anti-pinch System for Electric Windows Using
an AVR 8-bit Flash Microcontroller

SECURITY
30 ATA5723, ATA5724, and ATA5728 –
New Members for Atmel’s Receiver Family

INFOTAINMENT
4 Addressing Challenging Antenna Designs with
Atmel’s Antenna Amplifiers
36 Moving Towards Digital Broadcasting: Receivers for DAB and DMB

SAFETY
42 ATA6285/ATA6286 – An Ideal Solution for Low-power Applications
50 Image Processing for Automotive Safety Applications Using
AVR32 Processors
58 Superior and Safe Overtaking with Dynamic Pass Prediction

STANDARD PRODUCTS
14 Atmel’s 2nd Generation LIN Transceiver, LIN System Basis Chip,
and System-in-Package Solutions
20 SOI Technology Offers Cost-effective LIN Communication
66 Atmel’s Automotive Serial EEPROM Products

POWERTRAIN
8 Atmel’s High-temperature Automobile Electronics

www.atmel.com
 Atmel Automotive Compilation, Vol. 4

Infotainment

Radio

Addressing Challenging Antenna

Designs with Atmel’s Antenna
Amplifiers
Stephan Gerlach

Car radio antennas are nowadays maximum of 240 MHz, a frequency and magnetic fields enables the use
increasingly seen as an intrinsic ele- where DAB signals in Europe can be of a vertical antenna as required for
ment of car design. Atmel ’s antenna
®
received. the AM band. Figure 1 illustrates
amplifier IC’s are directly address- the phenomenon where only verti-
ing this challenging design trend for For the AM section, the signals are cally oriented field vectors exist at
small and minature antennas without transmitted as vertically polarized the horizontal planes of the car body
compromising the reception perfor- waves and therefore the car antenna e.g., car roof or trunk. The horizontal
mance of car radios. should be polarized in a vertical direc- vectors are bent in a vertical direc-
tion. In the FM frequency range, the tion. In addition, the field strength is
The outlook of the modern car polarization of the transmitted signals increased by discontinuities primarily
antenna leads to technical require- is mostly horizontal, which seems caused by window apertures. These
ments and restrictions that are ever to be opposite to the AM reception discontinuities determine the most
more difficult to fulfill. The first and demands. suitable point of installation for a
most challenging problem is the car antenna. The middle of the roof
small dimensions required of the Fortunately the influences of the is probably not the best place for
antennas. The second is the length metal body of a car on the electric antenna installation.
of the connecting cable particular-
ily in SUVs. Additional requirements
include multi-antenna concepts as
well as antenna diversity applications
for different kinds of antennas (wind-
Antenna
shield, roof, or bumper antennas).

Antenna Physics

The traditional AM/FM frequency

range has been extended on the
AM side to 30 MHz to enable DRM
reception for car radios. On the FM
side, the frequency requirements
start with the Japanese band at
78 MHz, and end at band III with Figure 1 Field Vectors at Car Antenna
 www.atmel.com 

As a positive consequence of car tance. Compared to a small passive Functional

body physics, one type of antenna antenna connected directly to the Description of ATR4251
form – the small dipole type – is fea- antenna cable, a solution with an AM
sible for all the required AM and FM buffer amplifier can provide an inser- The ATR4251 is a monolithic inte-
reception bands. tion gain of up to 35 dB. The actual grated AM/FM antenna-match-
value depends, of course, on the ing amplifier circuit. Two separate
For design reasons, the length of a antenna and cable impedance. amplifiers are used for AM and FM
roof antenna nowadays is extremely bands due to the different operating
short compared to the reception Reception conditions may vary drasti- frequencies and requirements of the
wavelength. This results in a very cally due to distance to the transmit- bands. This allows the use of sepa-
low antenna impedance with a high ter station but also due to shadowing rate antennas but both amplifiers can
capacitive imaginary part. If such effects resulting in multi-path distur- also be connected to a single antenna
an antenna is connected to a cable bance. As the antenna LNA must be (for example the roof antenna).
– even a dedicated low capacitive suited to receiving the complete AM
cable with 20 – 30 pF/meter – the or FM band, it must have excellent Both amplifiers chains are equipped
resulting cable capacitance can eas- large-signal behaviour resulting in very with automatic gain control circuits
ily reach values of about 150 pF. The high IP3 and IP2 values. (AGC) in order to avoid overdriving
cable capacitance acts, in this case, of the amplifiers under large signal
as a capacitive divider and reduces In addition, for extremely large signals conditions. The two separate AGC
the effective signal strength at the car an automatic gain control (AGC) has circuits, with individually adjustable
radio tuner input. to be established to damp the signal limits, prevent strong AM signals from
peaks and maintain a constant maxi- blocking weak FM stations and vice
In such scenarios, an antenna ampli- mum level at the car radio’s tuner versa. The necessary level detec-
fier and, in particular, a buffer ampli- input. On the other hand, very good tors are integrated into ATR4251 and
fier for AM between the antenna small-signal parameters, especially provide high linearity and outstand-
and the cable is advantageous. noise figure and stability factor k are ing large signal behaviour (input
The monolithic integrated antenna mandatory for the antenna amplifier. intercept point: 142 dBµV in FM and
amplifier ATR4251 from Atmel has 146 dBµV in AM). (Figure 2)
a very low input capacitance at the
AM band (2.45 pF) and a very low The AM tuners in car radios usually
output impedance at the AM buffer use PIN diode attenuators at their
amplifier output (5 Ohm). This facili- input. These PIN diode attenuators
tates the driving of the cable capaci- reduce the signal from the antenna

www.atmel.com
 Atmel Automotive Compilation, Vol. 4

by decreasing the input imped- hand protects the output of the AM terminals are accessible from the out-
ance of the tuner. A series resistor antenna amplifier against short-cir- side. For low-cost applications, the
of about 33 Ohms is used at the cuit by the PIN diode attenuator in common emitter configuration pro-
ATR4251’s AM amplifier output for the car radio. vides good performance at a reason-
standard applications. This series able BOM cost. For high-end appli-
resistor on the one hand guarantees The FM amplifier’s NPN transistor cations, common base configuration
a well-defined source impedance allows an optimized configuration for with lossless transformer feedback
for the radio tuner and on the other the customer’s requirements as all provides a high OIP3 of 148 dBµV

ATR4251

FM
Attenuator
Amplifier

Detector AGC
Threshold

Antenna

AGC
(FM) AGC
Time
Constant

Bandgap Antenna
Reference Cable

AGC
Time
AGC Constant
(AM)

Detector AGC
Threshold

AM
Attenuator
Buffer

Figure 2 Block Diagram of ATR4251 Application

 www.atmel.com 

and a low noise figure of 2.8 dB at for the extended automotive tem- solutions, such as AM/FM front-end
reasonable current consumption. In perature range between –40°C and devices or active antenna solutions.
both configurations, the gain as well +115°C. This upper temperature One focus area of Atmel’s broad-
as input and output impedance can level is requested due to the location cast radio activities is the car audio
be adjusted by modifying external of the antenna amplifier on top of the segment. Atmel’s in-depth radio
components. car’s roof. know-how and high quality stan-
dards (ISO 9001 and TS 16949)
The ATR4251 is also equipped with enable Atmel to meet the specific
two separate AGC circuits for AM Summary and Future quality and performance require-
and FM bands to prevent overdriv- Prospects ments of the automotive market.
ing the antenna amplifier in the event Atmel provides complete solutions
of a very strong antenna signal. The Atmel provides highly integrated for antenna amplifiers and tuner
amplifier outputs are connected to antenna amplifiers for AM, FM, DRM, front-ends and supports design-ins
a resistive (AM) or capacitive (FM) and HD Radio. The antenna amplifiers with a broad range of tools includ-
voltage divider and the divided sig- facilitate outstanding radio reception ing software and dedicated refer-
nal is applied to the corresponding performance. Atmel’s solutions offer a ence designs.
AGC level detector, which has been highly dynamic range and thus allow
specially optimized for low distor- crystal-clear reception without distor- Atmel offers intensive design-in sup-
tion. The rectified signal is com- tions even under extremely difficult and port, system expert know-how, demo
pared against an internal reference quickly changing field strength condi- boards, and evaluation kits as well as
level. For individual applications, the tions as found with moving antenna detailed documentation to reduce
threshold of the AGC can be eas- systems in automobiles. Long cables design risk and time-to-market of the
ily adjusted by modifying the divider and the small sizes of modern anten- final application.
ratio of the external dividers. As soon nas create signal losses, which are
as the the threshold is reached, the compensated for by the impedance
AGC output opens an external tran- matching amplifier. References
sistor, which controls the PIN diode
current and reduces the level of the To increase the performance and 1. Rothammel, Karl; Alois Krischke
amplifiers input signal. reduce the BOM of the application, (2001).“Rothammels Antennen-
a refinement of the ATR4251 is on buch”. DARC Verlag GmbH.
The inbuilt bandgap voltage refer- Atmel’s road map. 2. Atmel Datasheet: Low-noise High-
ence maintains the overall techni- dynamic-range AM/FM Antenna
cal parameters for temperature and Atmel has more than 30 years expe- Amplifier IC ATR4251. Ref.: 4913-
operating voltage variations even rience in designing broadcast radio AUDR-07/07.

www.atmel.com
 Atmel Automotive Compilation, Vol. 4

Powertrain

ASICs

Atmel’s High-temperature Automobile

Electronics
Claus Mochel, Thierry Corbiere, and Rainer Boehringer

The number of electronics used in enough that one individual electronic the latch-up performance of the
automobiles continues to rise. This component meets these high require- components worsen with rising tem-
trend also applies to areas which ments, rather all components of such peratures. SOI material offers a range
due to harsh environmental condi- a system including the driver circuits, of advantages in comparison to bulk
tions, cost-effective use of electron- power supply circuits, and the micro- material. Bulk technologies are, in
ics was difficult and often impossible, controller must fulfill these require- general, dependent on PN-junctions
for example, directly on the motor or ments. Substantial power dissipation operated in cutoff regions. SOI tech-
gearbox, in the turbo-charger or in occurs in particular with driver chips nology, however, offers the possibil-
the exhaust gas recirculation system. and chips used to supply the system. ity of completely isolating individual
There has long been a demand for In these cases permissible junction components with oxide – both hori-
compact, economical mechatronic temperatures from 175°C to 200°C zontally and vertically. (Figure 1)
systems, which could be attached are required.
together with the motor directly to the With SOI technology, no wells are
mechanic to be driven. However as a in contact with the substrate and
result of the temperatures occurring SOI Technology for therefore, there is no corresponding
in these areas of the automobile, the Junction Tempera- leakage current path. The leakage
use of specialized high-temperature tures of 200ºC current path to the substrate with
electronics (i.e., circuits with normal conventional bulk technology has an
operating temperatures of 125ºC or Junction temperatures of 200ºC are increasing significance with increas-
greater) is essential. An environmen- not attainable with semiconductors ing temperatures as thermal leakage
tal temperature of 150°C has been made with standard bulk materials. current in the PN-junction drastically
stated as a requirement; however, The main reasons for this are that in increases.
demand for values of 175ºC and combination with high-temperatures,
higher have been heard. However, the leakage current in semiconduc-
with these temperatures, it is not tors dramatically increase and also

Figure 1 SOI Technology REM Picture (Active Silicon is Isolated Both Horizontally and Vertically)
 www.atmel.com 

10-08

10-09

10-10 BCDMOS
Leakage Current [A]

10-11

10-12 SMARTISTM1

10-13

10-14

10-15
0 50 100 150 200 250
Temperature [ºC]

Figure 2 Leakage Current vs. Temperature for 65V High-voltage Transistor Created
with Bulk and SOI Materials

Up to 50 Times Less
Leakage Current with
SOI Technology -VS +VS

The sensitivity of the leakage current

to temperature is shown in figure 2
n+ n+ p+ p+
for a high-voltage transistor manu-
factured with SOI and bulk. SOI
offers up to 50 times less leakage
current. Leakage current at high- P-Well N-Well
temperatures with bulk technology
reaches unacceptable levels. As pre-
P-Substrate
viously mentioned, in addition to the
increasing leakage current, the risk of
damage to the circuit due to latch-up Figure 3 Parasitic Bipolar Transistors in Bulk Technology
also increases significantly with high
temperatures. Latch-up is caused with increasing temperature because
by parasitic bipolar transistors that the bipolar transistor’s current gain
are inherent due to the doping layer exhibits a positive temperature co-
-VS
structure of the N and P-channel efficient. The use of SOI material
MOS transistors in common sub- as well as the use of vertical oxide-
strates. This is shown in figure 3. This filled trench isolation completely dis-
parasitic bipolar transistor can form ables the parasitic bipolar transistor
a thyristor. The corresponding circuit and with that the thyristor, thus also
diagram is shown in figure 4. enabling reliable operation at high
temperatures. (Figure 5)

Latch-up-free Opera- ESD protection is essential for auto-

tion up to 200ºC mobile products. As a result of the
dielectric isolation, SOI technology
The firing of the thyristor causes a does not have the possibility of dis-
short-circuit of the supply voltage charging the energy of an ESD pulse
to the CMOS-component, which in the substrate. Figure 6 shows +VS

almost always results in damage. that this does not hinder the devel-
The sensitivity of the thyristor rises opment of protection concepts that Figure 4 Parasitic Thyristor

www.atmel.com
10 Atmel Automotive Compilation, Vol. 4

-VS +VS

n+ n+ p+ p+

P-Well N-Well

Oxide

P-Substrate

Figure 5 Oxide Isolation with SOI-CMOS Technology

meet the highest ESD requirements. of SOI technology in automobiles is integration density is possible when
This graphic shows the characteris- too costly since the basis material in compared with standard technolo-
tic curve of an ESD protection that SOI is considerably more expensive gies. The cost advantages resulting
offers a stability of 6 kV at the system than common processed wafers. from the reduced chip size compen-
level test without additional external This is not the case. The dielectric sates for the higher costs of the basis
protection circuits. isolation required with SOI material material.
has substantially less die size when
Cost pressure is another important compared with bulk technology. So Figure 7 illustrates the die-size reduc-
aspect in automobile manufacturing. with the same lithographic struc- tions with a driver component trans-
Current opinion holds that the use tural dimensions, significantly higher ferred from bulk technology to SOI.

Leakage Current [A]

0.0000001 0.000001 0.00001 0.0001 0.001 0.01 0.1

16

12
ESD Current [A]

0
0 20 40 60 80 100 120
ESD Voltage [V]

6 kV System Level ESD ESD Current Leakage Current

Figure 6 Characteristic Curve of a High-voltage ESD Protection Reaching a 6 kV

System Level ESD Requirement
 www.atmel.com 11

Figure 7 Die-size Reductions Resulting from the Use of SOI Materials

Market Availability of data-retention of the memory cells. As 8, the first failure occurs after 50,000
Microcontrollers for a general rule, cost-efficient 1-transis- cycles.
Extreme Environments tor cells are used for these memories
in commercial microprocessors. For Atmel’s 8-bit microcontroller has an
In addition to the previously men- high-temperature processes, this is RISC architecture, which has been
tioned driver components, high-tem- no longer sufficient. Instead, 2-tran- optimized to execute one instruction
perature applications also require sistor cells are used. These excel at per clock cycle. It is manufactured
microprocessors. For this purpose, high temperatures as they are sub- using a non-volatile embedded pro-
through appropriate design and qual- stantially more robust. cess technology that enables both
ification measures, existing proces- on-chip flash and EEPROM memo-
sors are primed for use in areas with The ATmega88, an 8-bit microcon- ries, complemented by a local SRAM
temperatures of 125°C to 150°C. troller from Atmel ’s AVR ® ®
family for immediate or temporary storage.
These components must have very demonstrates this. As seen in figure
low power-dissipation so that cumu-
lative self-heating is negligible, and 6
the maximum junction temperature
can almost be fully exploited as ambi-
ent temperature. The very low internal
heat-dissipation of the microproces- 4
Error Count

sor makes the monolithic integration

of flash memory, among other things,
possible at environmental tempera-
tures of 150ºC. Flash and EEPROM 2

memory blocks are among the most

sensitive parts at high temperatures
since the structure’s basic mecha-
0
nism is that charges are stored in a
0 20 40 60 80
floating gate. When the temperature
increases, atom agitation provokes Read/Write Cycle (X 1000)

leakages and trapped charges tend

to escape, limiting the life-time and Figure 8 Failure Histogram for Flash Cells at Ambient Temperature of 150ºC

www.atmel.com
12 Atmel Automotive Compilation, Vol. 4

AEC-Q100 Grade 0 Brushless 3-phase tion temperature greater than 200ºC.

Qualification DC Motor System The output is fully protected; open
load, overload, and undervoltage
The AVR family offers many additional A simple high-temperature 3-phase are reported to microcontroller via
functions such as an analog-to-digi- system can be built up with the a serial interface. The outputs are
tal converter, analog amplifiers, or ATmega88, the driver circuit ATA6832, also switched with this interface. The
comparators as well as internally and the LIN system basis chip direct PWM input of the driver can be
calibrated RC oscillators or digital ATA6624. (Figure 9) flexibly linked to the 6 output stages.
interfaces for communication or time This ensures intelligent movement
references. The qualification of these The driver IC integrates three half control for any acceleration and
components is carried out in accor- bridges, to which a brushless motor braking profile.
dance with AEC Q100 Grade 0 for can be directly connected. For opti-
use in the –40°C to 150°C tempera- mum monitoring of the maximum The loop between the motor move-
ture range. In addition to the various junction temperature of the ATA6823, ment and the microcontroller is real-
microcontrollers, Atmel also offers each integrated output stage con- ized by hall sensors. The communica-
driver circuits and system basis chips tains a thermal sensor. Thermal warn- tion is carried out by the ATmega88.
for this temperature range, which can ing and a thermal shutdown function, In addition to the motor control, this
be seen in the two following motor both with hysteresis, enable damage- microcontroller has enough avail-
control application examples. free operation at high temperatures. able flash memory to operate, for
The output is deactivated at a junc- example, a LIN (Local Interconnect

Battery

ATA6624 BLDC
Protection
U Motor
LIN Charge Pump
TRX
V
VCC 16-bit SPI, PWM
Regulator
Diagnosis
W
LIN Watchdog
ATA6832

Tx Rx

VCC
SPI
Hall Sensor

ATmega88

Figure 9 Three-phase Brushless DC Motor Control Application with ATmega88 and ATA6832
 www.atmel.com 13

Network, a widely used automobile DC Motor Control can be implemented using the output
communications bus), which takes with H-bridges voltage of the charge pump to drive
over the communication with the a reverse operating power MOSFET
automobile. The module is coupled The microcontroller ATmega88 and switch.
with the automobile system using the the system basis chip ATA6824,
LIN transceiver of the system basis which has been developed specially The complete movement control of
chip ATA6624. This integrated circuit for H-bridge motor drivers, provide a the motor is performed by the inte-
also supplies the 5V supply voltage system solution for high-temperature grated control logic of the ATA6824.
for the complete system. To pre- DC motors. Like the ATmega88, the A PWM signal with a frequency up
vent exceeding the maximum junc- ATA6824 is also qualified for environ- to 25 KHz for speed control and a
tion temperature of the circuits, an mental temperatures up to 150ºC. direction signal are sufficient as input
external bipolar transistor is used as The ATA6824 can also operate with signals. Depending on the activated
a linear regulator. Transistors with a junction temperatures up to 200ºC. output stage, the corresponding
junction temperature of up to 175ºC External power MOSFETs, which are drain-source voltage is monitored for
are readily available on the market. necessary for the power switches short-circuits.
Furthermore, the circuit includes a are easily obtainable and suitable for
watchdog, which monitors the sys- junction temperatures up to 175ºC. If required, the precise motor current
tem functions independently from The SBC ATA6824, in addition to the can be measured by a shunt resistor
the microcontroller. driver stages for the external power in the H-bridges’ ground. The micro-
MOSFETS, also contains a voltage controller can monitor the bridge
The microcontroller ATmega88 and regulator to supply the complete drivers using the diagnostic pins of
the driver ATA6832 are specialized module. The output voltages can the ATA6824. Short-circuit, open
for use in environmental tempera- be set to 3.3V or 5V. The SBC also load, overvoltage, and overtempera-
tures up to 150ºC. The system basis contains a watchdog and a serial ture on the bridge are monitored and
chip ATA6624 is specified with a interface to communicate with other in the event of a fault, the bridge is
maximum junction temperature of modules in the automobile. The switched off. The microcontroller can
150ºC. The IC’s junction is warmed high-side switch is supplied through signal this event over the serial inter-
approximately 3K as a result of its an integrated charge pump, which face to the automobile.
own current consumption and LIN makes the use of cost-effective N-
communication, therefore, the maxi- MOSFETs possible. A cost-efficient Reprinted with kind permission of Elek-
mum environmental temperature of reverse battery protection with low tronik. Originally printed, “Chips in Fege-
the application is 147ºC. on-resistance and power dissipation feuer”, March 20th 2007.

VBAT

VBAT VINT VG CPHI CPLO VRES PBAT

VMODE VBATSW
H2
VCC 3.3/5V VCC 13V Gate Driver
Regulator CP S2
Regulator High Side 2

DG1
Supervisor
DG2 Short-circuit
Open Load
AVR
DG3
Overtemperature ATA6824 H1
Undervoltage Gate Driver
ATmega88 High Side 1 S1
/RESET M
WD
EN1 Logic Control Gate Driver L1
Low Side 1
DIR
PWM
L2
RX
WD WCC Gate Driver
TX SIO Timer Timer Low Side 2
PGND

LIN EN2 RWD CC GND

SIO

Figure 10 DC Motor Control with H-bridge with ATA6824, ATmega88, and 4 External Power MOSFETs

www.atmel.com
14 Atmel Automotive Compilation, Vol. 4

Standard
Products

Networking

LIN

Atmel’s 2nd Generation LIN Trans-

ceiver, LIN System Basis Chip, and
System-in-Package Solutions
Claus Mochel

LIN (Local Interconnect Network) is LIN Bus

now firmly established in the auto-
mobile industry as a low-cost net-
working solution. LIN networks are Voltage Driver
Regulator Watchdog Actuator
used throughout the automobile for
comfort electronics as well as pow-
ATA6662
ertrain and sensor or actuator node
applications. Atmel® have recently
released a new family of LIN trans- LIN Sensor
µC Interface
ceivers, LIN system basis chips, and Transceiver

LIN system-in-package solutions.

This family is based on Atmels 2nd ATA6623/25

generation LIN IP and is designed ATA6622/24

ATA6612/13
in Atmel’s well-proven high-voltage
BCD-on-SOI technology. As outlined
in the article “SOI Technology Offers Figure 1 Atmel LIN Family Tree
Cost-effective LIN Communication”
on page 20, these chips display based on Atmel’s 2nd generation AVR® microcontroller and a LIN sys-
excellent EMC behavior. LIN know-how and as such replicate tem basis chip in a single package.
the outstanding performance of the The new members ATA6612/13 are
Atmel’s renowned LIN transceiver ATA6662. successors of Atmel’s LIN system-
ATA6662, with its best-in-class EMC in-package solutions ATA6602 and
performance, is, of course, included Atmel’s LIN system basis chips ATA6603.
in this family. The ATA6662 has ATA6623/25 and ATA6622/24 have
recently obtained OEM approval from been developed as a improvement
most major OEMs around the world. on Atmel’s well-known 1st generation
The new generation of LIN SBCs LIN SBCs ATA6620 and ATA6621.
and SiPs described in this article are Atmel’s system solutions combine an
 www.atmel.com 15

Atmel LIN Family Overview

Part Number Type Features Supply/Operating Successor for Package
Voltage (V) 1)
ATA6662 Standalone LIN Trans- LIN Interface LIN 2.0, 40/27 ATA6661 SO8
ceiver SAEJ2602-2
ATA6622/24 System Basis Chip LIN Interface 40/27 ATA6621 QFN20
(SBC) + Voltage Regulator (3.3V/5V)
+ Watchdog
ATA6626 System Basis Chip LIN Interface 40/27 – QFN20
(SBC) without Time-out Function
+ Voltage Regulator (5V)
+ Watchdog
ATA6623/25 System Basis Chip LIN Interface 40/27 ATA6620 SO8
(SBC) + Voltage Regulator (3.3V/5V)
ATA6612/13 System-in-Package LIN Interface 40/27 ATA6602/ATA6603 QFN48
Solution (SiP) + Voltage Regulator
ATA6624 + µC + Watchdog
(ATmega88/168) + AVR
1)
For 40V operation voltage range, please refer to the application note available at
http://www.atmel.com/dyn/resources/prod_documents/doc4938.pdf

ATA6622/23, The ATA6622/24 also contains a to handle the low-speed data com-
ATA6622/24 LIN watchdog, a positive-edge-trig- munication in vehicles. Improved
System Basis Chip gered high-voltage input wake-up slope control at the LIN driver output
pin (KL15) and a negative-edge- ensures secure data communica-
ATA6623/25 and ATA6622/24 con- triggered high-voltage input wake- tion up to 20 kBd. The bus output is
tain a fully integrated LIN transceiver, up pin (WAKE). The combination of designed to withstand a DC voltage
designed in compliance with the LIN voltage regulator, bus transceiver, range between –27V and +40V. Due
2.0 specification and the SAEJ2602-2 and watchdog makes it possible to to the monolithic integration of the
standard. These chips include a low- develop simple, yet powerful, master voltage regulator and the watchdog
drop voltage regulator (ATA6622/23 and slave nodes in LIN bus systems. in the ATA6622/24, system costs
3V/50 mA, ATA6622/24 5V/50mA). ATA6622 – ATA6625 are designed can be reduced by about 25%; this

LIN Bus

Watchdog
ATA6623/25 VS

Receiver Filter
RXD LIN

TXD LIN Output Stage

Time-out Wake-up Bus Timer Slew Rate Control
Microcontroller Timer Control Unit
TXD
Short-circuit
Standby Mode and
EN Silent Mode Overtemperature
Protection

GND
Voltage Regulator
Voltage Regulator
VCC

NRES

Figure 2 ATA6623/25 System Diagram

www.atmel.com
16 Atmel Automotive Compilation, Vol. 4

LIN Bus

ATA6622/24
VS
Receiver Filter
RXD LIN

KL 15

TXD LIN Output Stage

Microcontroller Time-out Wake-up Bus Timer
Micro- Slew Rate Control
Timer Control Unit
TXD
controller Short-circuit
Standby Mode and
EN Silent Mode Overtemperature
Wake-up
Protection
Timer
WAKE
Voltage Regulator
Voltage Regulator Watchdog WD_OSC
VCC GND

INH PVCC NTRIG NRES

Booster

Figure 3 ATA6622/24 System Diagram

is because discrete components as of switches in dashboards or door as the GND pin has a metallic con-
used with other solutions are not control units is a typical application nection to the internal lead frame. This
needed. As a result, the ATA6622/24 for this mode. enables the GND pin to act as a heat
also requires less board space, sink. Atmel’s ATA6622/24 has out-
which makes it perfectly suited for standing thermal performance due to
applications with space restrictions. Voltage Regulator its 20-pin 5 mm x 5 mm QFN pack-
Another outstanding feature of the age with heat slug. Some automotive
new LIN SBCs is their extremely The internal voltage regulator is capa- applications need extended current
low quiescent current consumption, ble of driving loads up to 50 mA, thus and power capability; for this type
which is typically 10 µA in standby supplying the microcontroller and of application, Atmel’s ATA6622/24
mode. An additional silent mode has other ICs in the ECU. It is short-circuit provides the possibility of boosting
been implemented to achieve quies- and overload protected by means of the output current of the integrated
cent currents down to 66 µA with the current limitation and overtempera- voltage regulator via a discrete NPN
internal voltage regulator enabled. ture shutdown. ATA6623/25 is deliv- transistor connected between the
This allows a microcontroller to be ered in Atmel’s SO8 power package VCC and PVCC pins. This can also be
operated in sleep mode. Scanning and offers improved thermal behavior used to extend the ambient tempera-
 www.atmel.com 17

LIN Bus

LIN
Node 1

LIN SiP ATA66xx

ATA6624 LIN
DC Motor LIN SBC
Driver IC including
8-bit AVR
or LIN Transceiver
Sensor IC Voltage Regulator
Watchdog
LIN
Node 3

Figure 4 ATA6612/13 System Diagram

ture range of applications by moving Atmel offers this solution as a multi- • 32 general-purpose working regis-
the power dissipation of the voltage chip module in a small 48-pin QFN ters
regulator to the external NPN transis- 7 mm x 7 mm package with heat • 3 flexible timer/counters with
tor. In this case, the power dissipation slug. All pins of the LIN system basis compare modes
in the LIN SBC is so small that it can chip as well as all pins of the AVR • Internal and external interrupts
be used for ambient temperatures up microcontroller are bonded out to • Serial programmable USART
to 145°C. Therefore, Atmel’s SBCs provide customers the same flexibil- • Byte-oriented 2-wire serial interface
are also suitable for high-temperature ity for their applications as they have • 8-channel 10-bit ADC
applications. when using discrete parts. • 5 software selectable power sav-
ing modes
The application note “Fully integrated
BLDC Motor Control” details the AVR 8-bit The AVR 8-bit microcontrollers are
use of the ATA6624 in a high-tem- Microcontrollers based on a RISC architecture that
perature, under-the-hood, environ- has been developed to take advan-
ment. (See http://www.atmel.com/ The ATA6624 includes a LIN trans- tage of modern semiconductor inte-
dyn/resources/prod_documents/ ceiver, voltage regulator, watchdog, gration and software capabilities.
doc4987.pdf for details.) and the 8-bit AVR microcontroller The fast-access RISC architecture,
ATmega88 with 8-kB flash memory. which consists of 32 x 8-bit gen-
The ATA6613 differs only in the size eral-purpose working registers, is an
ATA6612, ATA6613 of the flash memory, with 16 kB advantage of the AVR. Within one
LIN System-in- available. The AVR microcontroller single clock cycle, AVR can feed two
Package Solution includes the following functions: arbitrary registers from the register
• Bootloader file to the ALU, do a requested oper-
In addition to LIN transceivers and • Internal RC oscillator with toler- ation, and write back the result to an
LIN system basis chips, Atmel also ances suitable for LIN applications arbitrary register. AVR uses a Har-
provides system-in-package solu- • 512 bytes EEPROM vard architecture, where the program
tions, which combine a LIN system • 1 Kbyte SRAM memory space is separated from the
basis chip with an AVR microcon- • SPI serial port data memory space.
troller in a single package. • 23 general-purpose I/O lines

www.atmel.com
18 Atmel Automotive Compilation, Vol. 4

Table 1 Power-saving Modes

Mode Functional Description
Idle Stops the CPU while allowing the SRAM, timer/counters, USART, 2-wire serial interface, SPI port, and interrupt
system to continue functioning.
Power-down Saves the register contents but freezes the oscillator, disabling all other chip functions until the next interrupt or
hardware reset.
Power-save The asynchronous timer continues to run allowing the user to maintain a timer base while the rest of the device is
sleeping.
ADC Noise Reduction Stops the CPU and all I/O modules except asynchronous timer and ADC to minimize switching noise during ADC
conversions.
Standby The crystal/resonator oscillator is running while the rest of the device is sleeping. This allows very fast start-up
and low power consumption.

Implementing a single-level pipeline boot-code section with independent time generator on some devices) or
design whereby the next machine lock bits for protection. input capture are also available.
instruction is fetched as the cur-
rent one is executed, AVR achieves AVR offers a wide range of features, For analog measurements, multiple-
throughputs approaching 1 MIPS from multifunction, bi-directional input 10-bit ADC with selectable gain
per MHz. This makes AVRs very fast general-purpose I/O ports with con- can be combined with an analog
in comparison with other 8-bit micro- figurable inbuilt pull-up resistors to comparator. In addition, a brown-out
controllers, allowing system design- on-chip debugging (OCD) support detection circuit is implemented.
ers to optimize power consumption through JTAG or debugWIRE on
versus processing speed. most devices. Series of 8-bit and
16-bit timers with PWM output (dead
The AVR automotive line can support
clock speeds from 0 – 16 MHz. All
AVRs feature an on-chip calibrated
RC oscillator, removing the need for
external clocks or resonator circuitry.

The AVR family of processors was

designed with the efficient execu-
tion of compiled C code in mind and
has several inbuilt pointers for this
task. The program instructions are
stored in non-volatile flash memory
addressed in a 16-bit fashion and
programmable in different ways,
including in-system programming,
JTAG, high-voltage methods, or via
bootloader. The flash memory has a Figure 5 Evaluation Board
 www.atmel.com 19

GND VCC

Watchdog debugWIRE
Timer
Power Supervision
POR / BOD and
Reset
Watchdog Program
Oscillator Logic

Flash SRAM
Oscillator Circuits /
Clock Generation

AVR CPU

EEPROM

AVCC
AREF
GND

2
8-bit T/C 0 16-bit T/C 1 A/D Converter
DATABUS

Analog Internal 6
8-bit T/C 2 Compensation Bandgap

USART 0 SPI TWI

Port D (8) Port B (8) Port C (7)

RESET

XTAL[1..2]

PD[0..7] PB[0..7] PC[0..6] ADC[6..7]

Figure 6 ATmega88 Block Diagram

Tools on the board, which offer designers online at http://www.atmel.com/dyn/

the chance to modify various param- products/app_notes.asp?family_
Atmel provides various cost-effective eters. Furthermore, a LIN ANSI C id=607
support tools to assist in the devel- software library is available for LIN
opment of LIN networks. Devel- slave nodes. ActiveX® components, As a standard AVR microcontroller
opment boards, which have been also provided by Atmel, can be used with all pins bonded out is included
designed to give designers a quick to create a simple PC-program to in the ATA6612 and ATA6613, the
start with the IC and to enable pro- emulate the LIN master node. Creat- standard toolchain consisting of AVR
totyping and testing of new designs, ing and testing LIN networks is both Studio®, front-end assembler and
are available for all Atmel LIN Trans- easy and inexpensive with Atmel’s simulator, and in-circuit emulator can
ceivers, LIN SBCs, and LIN SiPs. hardware and software tools. The be used for developing and debug-
There are a number of placeholders software tools can be downloaded ging new applications.

www.atmel.com
20 Atmel Automotive Compilation, Vol. 4

Standard
Products

Networking

LIN

SOI Technology Offers Cost-effective

LIN Communication
Claus Mochel

The LIN bus has in recent times High EMC circuit board (PCB) of the electronic
become firmly established in auto- Requirements for the module, the small dimensions of the
mobiles as an inexpensive bus LIN Bus integrated circuits and the connection
option, one which is indispensable pins does not result in efficient anten-
for automobile manufacturers. Its The EMC requirements for LIN nodes nas for undesired HF radiation in fre-
many uses include electric windows, have risen continually over the past quency ranges smaller than 1 GHz.
electric mirrors, or car-door control couple of years. The testing efforts The HF interferences are transmitted
buttons. LIN buses are also found required by the automotive manufac- through the wire harness or the wir-
in car seats, air conditioning, in the turer and the suppliers are immense. ing of the PCB over the connection
car dashboard, windscreen wipers, The electromagnetic immunity tests pins of the ICs directly into the silicon.
or sunroof control; so much so that with radiated RF waves, performed To represent this in the laboratory,
the use of a LIN bus is considered by the automotive manufacturers, the DPI procedure was developed.
standard. The number of inbuilt LIN are not only carried out in automo- Using this procedure, each individual
nodes in automobiles has risen with biles. Well in advance of in-car test- device pin is independently tested for
the increase in the number of pos- ing, complete bus systems are built its susceptibility to electromagnetic
sible uses. Currently LIN nodes aver- up in specialized RF laboratories, interferences.
age over several hundred million units and long before implementation in
per automobile. As a result, automo- cars, the electromagnetic immunity is An RF generator with frequency
bile manufacturers are increasingly vigorously tested enabling early iden- variation is used to generate the RF
concerned with the security of the tification of flaws. Standardized EMC interference, which is then ampli-
data transfer in the harsh automotive tests on the LIN transceiver at the cir- fied by an RF amplifier. A directional
environment. In addition to software cuit level by independent test labora- coupler is then used to measure
methods, tougher requirements are tories offers another testing possibil- the power injected on the LIN bus.
being defined for hardware so as to ity. For these tests, specialized Direct A LIN bus with 3 LIN nodes in star
avoid data transfer anomalies. Auto- Power Injection (DPI) measurements configuration is built to compare the
mobile manufacturers are demand- are taken, which enable testing of the performance of various ICs. With this
ing that devices conform not only electromagnetic immunity of the inte- formation, each LIN node and LIN
to the LIN2.0 standard, but also to grated circuit. transceiver is equidistance from the
specialized electromagnetic compat- induction point and thus experience
ibility (EMC) tests. the same HF characteristics. A pat-
DPI Method of Deter- tern generator creates a signal that
mining EMC Stability is transmitted to the LIN bus, where
one LIN node acts a transceiver. The
In contrast to the wire harness of remaining two LIN nodes function as
the car and the wiring on the printed receivers. Interference signals with a
 www.atmel.com 21

RxD
LIN
Node 3
RF Amplifier
LIN Bus
Directional
Coupler
LI e 2

No LIN
No

1
N

de
d

RF Generator RF Power Meter RxD TxD

DSO

Pattern
Generator
Bus Connection for Instrument Control
Control PC

Figure 1 Overview of the LIN Bus DPI Measurement Method

frequency range of 1 MHz to 1 GHz sible errors are specified by the lead- perform better. Due to the electro-
are injected. The interference signal ing automobile manufacturers as magnetic interference, an RF signal
is slowly increased from 0 to 34 dBm between 25 dBm und 30 dBm. is added to the bus signal. Thus, the
for each testing frequency. A fault is resulting voltage can be a negative
determined if the timing of the signal voltage compared to ground poten-
at receiver output (RxD) varies by SOI Technology’s tial. As a result, parasitic transistors,
15% when compared with the unin- Suitability for LIN which are also located on these pin
terfered signal or if the difference in Buses are activated and cause interference
the voltage level is more than 0.9 V in other parts of the IC. (Figure 2)
when compared to the undisturbed These tests identify the weakness
signal. These are the maximum toler- of integrated circuits developed with SOI technology does not exhibit this
ated values as stated in the LIN EMC technologies where individual com- behavior as no parasitic transistors
test specifications. The individual val- ponents are isolated with junctions. In are present in the neighboring wells
ues for the failures are plotted against contrast, technologies using an oxide due to the oxide isolation. DPI tests
the frequency. The limits for permis- isolation (SOI as Silicon-on-Insulator) of ICs fabricated with SOI technology

www.atmel.com
22 Atmel Automotive Compilation, Vol. 4

Well Well Well

clearly demonstrate this. Atmel®’s P-Substrate

LIN Transceiver ATA6662, for exam-
ple, shows no evidence of this when
measured to a test limit of 34 dBm.
(Figure 3)

Figure 2 Parasitic NPN-Transistor Activated as a Result of Negative Voltage at an

ESD Protection for IC Pin
Standard BCD Tech-
nology is Problematic ESD protection in conventional BCD Lower Costs Due to
technologies. The ESD protection Die-size Reduction
To prevent ESD damage during structures must be placed in extra
fabrication, automobile manufac- isolation wells, which substantially One of the main reasons for the
turers demand not only the stan- increase the latch-up risk in this area specification of the LIN bus was the
dard requirements of 2 kV for HBM of the circuit. SOI technology offers automobile industry’s requirement for
(Human Body Model) tests and an essential advantage by the avoid- a low-cost bus.
500V for CDM tests (Charge Device ance of such problems. All of the
Model); an ESD stability of greater components are completely isolated The advantages of SOI technology
than 6 kV according to IEC61000-4- with an oxide; therefore, standard over standard BCD technology are
2 is demanded for the LIN pin with- ESD structures can be used in volt- also clearly evident in terms of cost.
out any additional external compo- age ranges that are more negative The basic wafer material for SOI tech-
nent connected. This is normally a than ground. nology is more expensive than for
standard for modules with external junction isolated technologies due to
components for ESD protection. The
reason for these high requirements is
that as a result of ESD damage, the 40

LIN pin can be shorted. This shorts 35

Atmel's ATA6662 Developed with SOI Technology
the complete bus system and com-
Injected Power/dBm

30
munication is no longer possible. 25
This may result in the functions of a
20
whole area in a car no longer working
15
(for example, all the door electronics). LIN Transceiver Developed with Bulk Technology
10
The LIN pin must be suitable for DC
5
voltages in the range of +40V to –27V
without external protective circuits. 0
1 10 10 0 10 0 0
The LIN pin’s inbuilt ESD protection
Frequency/MHz
must only be active at voltages lower
than –27V. Junction isolation drasti-
cally limits the construction of the Figure 3 Comparison of DPI Test Fault Limits Between Bulk and SOI Technologies
 www.atmel.com 23

1.6 µm

25M
MOST
Data Rate (Bit/s)

10M Component
SiO2
FlexRay® Si-Handling Wafer
1M
CAN-C Bluetooth® 16 µm
125K
CAN-B
20K
P+ Fox
LIN N+
P-Well Component

PBL NBL
1 2 5 10
P-Substrate
Relative Costs per Node
HV-NDrift N-Sinker

Figure 4 Cost per Node of the Various Bus Systems Figure 5 Comparison of the Component
Isolation in SOI (above) and Bulk (below)
Technologies

the fact that additional an oxide isola- higher integration density for analog < 150°C) is required. Latch-up in
tion has to be implemented. However, components and therefore a signifi- standard BCD technology, in particu-
as a result of the die-size reductions cant die-size reduction. lar with high temperatures, causes
in design, SOI offers a substantial difficulties. However, since there is
overall cost advantage. For example, no junction between two compo-
the die size of the junction isolation Latch-up Stability nents in SOI technology, this problem
for high-voltage components, which is non-existent. Therefore, additional
are connected directly to the power- Latch-up stability also provides a sig- die surface for layout arrangements
line of the car, can be replaced by a nificant advantage. In automobiles, such as protection rings and addi-
small trench in the oxide, as can be a latch-up stability for the complete tional redesigns are not required.
seen in figure 5. This enables much temperature range (–40°C < Tjunction

www.atmel.com
24 Atmel Automotive Compilation, Vol. 4

Figure 6 Surface Reduction Through the Use of SOI (right) Instead of Junction Isolated BCD Technology (left)

Inexpensive Solutions Trend Towards the automobile industry. The argu-

of the Highest Quality Increased Integration ment for saving space on the boards
and the reliability of the components
The previously mentioned advantages The LIN nodes found in vehicles also play an ever larger role. Despite
in terms of cost and die-size reduc- contain a LIN transceiver, a voltage the higher integration, automobile
tions easily compensate for the higher regulator, and a microcontroller. For manufacturers insist on the highest
price of the substrate material in SOI safety-critical uses, a watchdog is quality standards for the EMC and
technology. This can be seen in figure also required. Depending on the ESD requirements. The semiconduc-
6 with an example of a LIN compo- application, the LIN node can con- tor industry has adjusted to these
nent transferred from junction isolated tain additional elements such as requirements and in addition to stan-
technology to a SOI technology. sensors and actuators. The current dard LIN transceivers, integrated cir-
trend is towards higher integration of cuit families for the various require-
LIN components. One of the reasons ments and integration levels have
is the enormous cost pressures of been developed.
 www.atmel.com 25

LIN

Voltage Regulator Watchdog Actuator

LIN
Microcontroller Sensor
Transceiver

ATA6623/25

ATA6622/24

ATA6602/ATA6603

Figure 7 Commonly Used Structure of LIN-Slave Nodes in a LIN Bus System

Atmel’s LIN Family mentioned above, also have an inte- And in the Future?
grated AVR® microcontroller. The
Atmel offers, alongside the standard 8-Kbyte ATmega88 microcontroller It is expected that the number of
LIN transceiver ATA6662, further is used in the ATA6602, and the LIN nodes in automobiles will signifi-
SOI-fabricated system-basis ICs, ATmega168 with a 16-Kbyte flash cantly increase in the future. Both the
for example, the ATA6623/25, a LIN memory is used in the ATA6603. ESD and EMV stability requirements
transceiver with integrated voltage These two microcontrollers have a of such systems and the cost pres-
regulator with an output voltage of LIN-compatible UART, a 10-bit ADC sures will grow. The semiconductor
3.3V/5V. The next integration level with 8 channels, 512 byte EEPROM, industry is ready for this.
introduces the system basis chips and 1 Kbyte SRAM.
ATA6622/24. These chips contain
an integrated watchdog in addition Reprinted with kind permission of Elek-
to a voltage regulator. The two ICs tronik. Originally printed, “SOI für den LIN-
ATA6602/03, besides the functions Bus”, October 2007.

www.atmel.com
26 Atmel Automotive Compilation, Vol. 4

Body
Electronics

Central Unit

Replacing Mechanical Wiper Systems

with a Semiconductor Solution
Smart Motor Driver IC with Integrated Voltage Regulator, Watchdog, and
Communication Interface Improves on the Cumbersome Mechanical System
Automotive High-voltage Group

In today’s established dual front wiper

systems, a mechanical link between
the left and right wiper is used for
synchronization (see figure 1). This is Wipers
necessary due to the different behav-
iors of the wipers due to dirt on the
windshield, the effects of wind, or the
condition of the wiper itself. For many
years the automotive industry has
been looking for an intelligent solu-
tion to reduce the noise and space
Arm Pivot
demands of the mechanical link.

Mechical Linkage

Motor Output After

Worm Gear Reduction

Wipers
Figure 1 Typical Wiper Linkage Layout

Left
Wiper Motor Synchronization
+ Electronic Right
Interface Wiper Motor
+ Electronic

Figure 2 Dual Front Wiper System with Synchronization Interface Instead of

Mechanical Linkage
 www.atmel.com 27

Voltage
Hall Sensor Regulator
USART
µC Gate Driver Wiper Left
~10 A
Watchdog SCI

Wiper Motor + Electronic

Voltage
Hall Sensor Regulator SCI

USART
Switch µC Gate Driver Wiper Right
~10 A
Interval Watchdog

Wiper Motor + Electronic

Figure 3 Mechatronic Wiper Electronics

A solution is the replacement of the motor can easily be controlled by a fortable for the car driver. A differential
mechanical linkage by an electronic full H-bridge gate driver supporting SCI transceiver (serial communication
one (figure 2). In this architecture, PWM and direction-controlled driv- interface) can be used to reduce these
each wiper is powered by a DC ing of four power MOSFETs. An IC radiation emissions for improved EMC
motor. The DC motors are controlled for this purpose must be designed in performance. The SCI transceiver is a
by a microcontroller and a driver IC a high-voltage process and appropri- differential device which can also oper-
that can be mounted directly at the ate for applications in harsh environ- ate in single-ended mode for systems
motors. An interface handles the ments. An optimized communication with only one wiper. The SCI function-
synchronization between the left and interface is necessary for a high-vol- ality makes this gate driver very similar
right wiper, so that no mechanical ume DC-motor application such as a to LIN devices; compared to standard
link between the wipers is necessary windshield wiper system. LIN interfaces, however, a faster data
as with conventional wiper systems, transfer of up to 100 Kbaud is pos-
achieving considerable noise and Because the wiper electronics are sible.
space reduction. usually located very close to the car
radio, the EMC emissions have to be Each wiper module (see figure 3)
DC motors are used in wiper sys- controlled – the eclectic disruption of consists of a microcontroller, a highly
tems for cost reasons. This type of the car radio would be very uncom- integrated gate driver and the DC

H-bridge
Voltage Driver
Watchdog
Regulator Actuator

SCI
µC
Transceiver

ATA6026

Sensor Interface

SCI Bus

Figure 4 ATA6026 Integration Level

www.atmel.com
28 Atmel Automotive Compilation, Vol. 4

motor. Several hall sensors measure as overtemperature shutdown, over- detects a window error – no trigger
the positions of the two wipers. The voltage and undervoltage protec- in the open window or a false trigger
driver sends the commands via the tion, as well as full protection against in the closed window – a reset pulse
wiper switches to the microcontroller. short-circuits as well as meeting strict will be generated.
The electronics can be mounted very automotive qualification demands
close to the wiper motor without any (protection against conducted inter- The block diagram in figure 5 shows
huge space demand. ference, EMC and ESD protection). the implemented functions and the
typical application schematic.
The importance of low current con- To solve these problems and meet
sumption of an ECU continues to the above detailed requirements, The microcontroller controls the driv-
grow. To be able to guarantee the Atmel ®
created a highly integrated ing function of the IC by providing a
low quiescent current of the inactive gate driver IC, the ATA6026. This gate PWM speed signal and a direction
IC, a dedicated wake-up and sleep driver IC is highly integrated (figure 4) signal. The ATA6026 has to drive the
mode strategy is required. and includes a 5V/100-mA voltage gates of the external H-bridge, there-
regulator plus a watchdog, result- fore the IC includes two push-pull
A typical partitioning of a wiper appli- ing in fewer external components drivers to control two external power
cation is shown in figure 4. It consists for smaller designs requiring less NMOS used as high-side drivers and
of the microcontroller, the voltage PCB area – a critical issue in mecha- two push-pull drivers to control two
regulator supplying the microcon- tronic solutions. The motion control external power NMOS used as low-
troller, and other discrete elements, is carried out by the IC, so this func- side drivers. The drivers are able to
e.g. hall sensors. For safety reasons tion does not need any additional be used with standard or logic-level
– it would be critical if a wiper failed memory in the microcontroller. The power NMOS. The drivers for the
while driving in the rain – a watchdog watchdog is implemented as a win- high-side control use external boot-
in the system is required. dow watchdog and will be triggered strap capacitors to supply the gates
by the microcontroller via a LOW to with a voltage of 8V to 14V above the
As further guard against failure, an HIGH transition at pin WD during battery voltage level. It is also possi-
automotive IC requires features such the open window. If the watchdog ble to control the motor in the reverse
direction. A duty cycle of 100% in
both directions is possible by using
the charge pump to supply the gates
of the high-side drivers. To prevent
high peak currents in the H-bridge, a
non-overlapping phase for switching
the external power NMOS is imple-
mented. An external RC combination
defines the cross-conduction time.

The low-power and low-drop on-chip

voltage regulator is used for both the
internal and external voltage supply.
An external transistor as power ele-
 www.atmel.com 29

VBAT VCC

VBAT VREG VSHUNT VCC CP VREF PBAT

VBATSW
5V VCC H2
Regulator 13V CP High-side
Regulator Driver 2 S2
VCC
Supervisor:
Short-circuit CB1
DG1 Bootstrap 1
Open Load VINT 5V CB1
DG2 VBG Bootstrap 2
Overtemperature Regulator H1
/RESET Undervoltage
High-side S1
µC ATA6026 Driver 1
CWD
WD L1
EN Logic Control Low-side
Osc.
Driver 1
DIR
PWM L2
WD CC Low-side
RX SCI Timer Timer Driver 2
PGND
TX
SEM /DATA DATA CC GND
SCI Bus

Figure 5. Block Diagram of the Motor Control IC ATA6026

ment helps to reduce power dissipa- tery protection may be supplied by SCI for going to active, the EN pin
tion. When inactive, the device’s sleep the charge-pump output. can remain LOW without disturbing
mode guarantees a low quiescent the active mode.
current of typically 35 microamperes. As mentioned earlier, ECU applica-
For a battery voltage level between tions need sleep mode functionality Due to the monolithic integration of
6V and 9V the regulated output volt- to meet the low current consumption the voltage regulator, motion control,
age is 5V ± 10%, above 9V the regu- requirement. During the ATA6026’s watchdog and the communication
lated output voltage is 5V ± 3%. To sleep mode, it is possible to wake interface in one small QFN package,
prevent destruction of external NPN up the IC by using either the pin overall system costs can be reduced
and of the IC, a sense resistor is EN or /DATA. Only a few blocks are while maintaining the flexibility of the
used to detect the current delivered awake (the bandgap, the internal 5V output stages for plug-and-play use
by the regulator. In case of overcur- regulator with 100-nF external block- in almost any kind of motor driver
rent, the regulator limits the current ing capacitor, the input structure for application without needing adapta-
to the specified level. This means detecting the EN pin threshold and tion. The motion control is part of the
if the characteristic of the voltage the wake-up block of the SCI receive IC, only the PWM speed signal and
regulator changes to one of a cur- part). The default state after power the direction information has to be
rent regulator, the delivered voltage ON is the active mode. To change provided by the microcontroller. Two
will break down. The fully integrated between the two modes, three pro- diagnosis pins enable the possibility
charge pump supplies the gates of cedures are implemented. In addi- for fail-safe functions.
the external power MOSFETs of the tion to the activation/deactivation of
high-side drivers in case of a per- the EN pin there is a second possi-
manent ON state (100% PWM, the bility for waking up by using the SCI
bootstrap function is not available). transceiver. In sleep mode the SCI Reprinted with the kind permission of
In addition, the gate of an external receiver is partially active and works Auto Electronics. Originally printed in July
power NMOS used for reverse bat- in single-ended mode. If using the 2007.

www.atmel.com
30 Atmel Automotive Compilation, Vol. 4

Security

Car Access

ATA5723, ATA5724, and ATA5728 –

New Members for Atmel’s Receiver
Family
Paul Hartanto, Marcel Hennrich

RF Remote Control
The new members of Atmel®’s Remote Keyless Entry
receiver family ATA5723, ATA5724,
and ATA5728, have not only inher- µController + Transmitter Receiver: AVR Micro-
ATAR862 RF Data ATA5723 controller
ited the beneficial attributes of ATA5724
or
Atmel’s ATA5743, but also bring with ATA5728
µController Transmitter
them their own features. This article, ATARx9x T5750/3/4
in addition to providing a technical
description of the new receivers, also µTransponder Energy Data
Base Station:
U9280M
highlights both their inherited and U2270B
or Car
additional features. Data
Transponder
TK5561
The ATA572x are available in three Key
versions for Industrial, Scientific, Immobilizer
and Medical (ISM) frequency bands
313 to 317 MHz (ATA5723), 432 to
436 MHz (ATA5724), and 868 to 870-
MHz (ATA5728). The RF parts are Figure 1 Typical Automotive RF Applications
manufactured using Atmel’s RF BiC-
MOS process UHF6 and are housed trates the information exchange focuses on the RF data transmission
in a small SSO20 package making between a car and a key fob. If the and, in particular, on the receiver.
them a perfect fit for the automotive driver pushes the key fob button to
applications, remote keyless entry open the car door, the microproces- Like the ATA5743, the new receiv-
(RKE) and tire pressure monitoring sor inside the key fob passes the ers have a polling feature, which
Systems (TPMS), where application authorization data to the UHF trans- enables the microcontroller to remain
space is at a premium. The three mitter, which sends the data. If the in standby mode. This considerably
devices are pin compatible, enabling data is received, it is passed, by the saves the system’s current consump-
system designers to develop a single receiver to the microprocessor in the tion. The active current consumption
layout for worldwide solutions. car control unit for data verification. is specified at approximately 8 mA in
If the data from the key fob matches receiving mode. These new devices
Figure 1 illustrates the automotive the car’s authorization data, the door are highly integrated and offer excel-
applications RKE and immobilizer, is opened. An similar procedure is lent receiving performance as a result
which are supported by Atmel’s used for the immobilizer application of their fully integrated IF filter, low
receiver products. The figure illus- to start the car engine. This article phase noise VCO, PLL, and loop fil-
 www.atmel.com 31

FSK/ASK Dem_out
Data
CDEM Demodulator DATA
Interface
and Data Filter

RSSI
RSSI Limiter out
RSSI
POLLING/_ON
SENS IF Sensitivity Polling Circuit
Amp. reduction and Control Logic
AVCC DATA_CLK

AGND MODE
4. Order
DGND f0 = 1 MHz FE CLK

DVCC IC_ACTIVE

LPF Standby
fg = 2.2 MHz Logic

IF Loop
Amp. Filter
XTAL2
XTO
XTAL1

Poly-LPF
fg = 7 MHz f
LC-VCO :2
or :3

LNAREF
f f
LNA_IN LNA :2 :128
or :4 or :64
LNAGND

Figure 2 ATA572x Block Diagram

ter. (Figure 2) The single-ended RF System Description structure of the new receivers’
input allows easy adaptation of /4 front-end is illustrated in figure 2.
or printed loop antennas. The devices The receivers' RF front-end is a
support the typically requested pro- low-IF super heterodyne configu- The PLL generates the frequency
tocols – Manchester and Bi-phase ration that converts the input sig- fLO for the mixer via a fully integrated
codes. As discussed later, the new nal into an approximately 1 MHz synthesizer with integrated low noise
receiver ICs need few external intermediate frequency (IF) with a LC-VCO (Voltage Controlled Oscil-
devices and no external IF filter – ten typical image rejection of 30 dB. lator) and PLL-loop filter. The XTO
passive components, a crystal, and It consists of an LNA (Low Noise (crystal oscillator) generates the ref-
an RF antenna are typically all that Amplifier), LO (Local Oscillator), erence frequency fREF = fXTO/2 (868
is needed to create a receiver board I/Q mixer, polyphase low-pass fil- and 433 MHz versions) or fREF = fXTO/3
application. In addition, the ATA572x ter, and an IF amplifier. The signals (315 MHz version). The XTO is a two-
receivers have a logarithmic RSSI coming from the LNA are down- pin oscillator that operates at the
output allowing determination of the mixed to an intermediate fre- series resonance of the quartz crystal
signal strength of different transmit- quency and are filtered by the fully with high current but low voltage sig-
ters with an excellent resolution. integrated filter circuit. The exact nal, so that there is only a small volt-

www.atmel.com
32 Atmel Automotive Compilation, Vol. 4

age at the crystal oscillator frequency VS

at pins XTAL1 and XTAL2. As shown DVCC
in figure 3, the crystal should be con- CL2

nected to GND with two capacitors XTAL2

CL1
CL1 and CL2 from XTAL1 and XTAL2
XTAL1
respectively. This particular crystal
oscillator structure typically provides TEST 3
a 1.5 kOhm oscillation margin, which
simplifies the crystal specification TEST 2

and avoids “sleeping crystal” issues.

As a result of the ICs' large oscillation Figure 3 XTO Peripherals
margin, relatively low-cost crystals
can be used. put of the phase frequency detector are needed to achieve the optimal
is passed into an integrated loop filter sensitivity. The inductor L1, C1, and
The integrated LC-VCO generates where the control voltage for the VCO 100 pF capacitor are necessary for
frequency fVCO, which is two or four is generated. LNA input matching. For the best
times the mixer frequency. Dividing sensitivity, the bond wire inductivity
the VCO frequency by two or four The RF receiver ATA572x exhibits its of the LNA ground must be compen-
results in an I/Q signal for the mixer highest sensitivity if the LNA is power sated for by forming a series reso-
(fLO = fVCO/2 for 868 MHz version, fLO = matched. This simplifies matching to nance circuit with C3. The inductor
fVCO/4 for 433 MHz and 315 MHz ver- a SAW filter and a /4 antenna. Fig- L3 establishes the DC path for the
sions). The same VCO frequency is ure 4 shows both the ATA572x and LNA ground. In contrast, the optimal
divided by a factor of 128 or 64 and the ATA5743 in an application circuit sensitivity for ATA572x is achieved
fed into a phase frequency detector to matching to 50Ω. In the ATA5743 with just two passive elements L1
be compared with fREF. Thus, the out- application, five passive elements and C1 on the LNA input pin.

C3
LNAREF
LNAGND

L3

C1
50Ω C1 100 pF LNA_IN
LNA_IN 50Ω
L1
L1

LNAGND

ATA572x ATA5743

Figure 4 ATA572x and ATA5743 – Matching to 50Ω

 www.atmel.com 33

Table 1 Sensitivity Comparisons between ATA5723/24 and ATA5743

Modulation Input Sensitivity (dBm)
ATA572x ATA5743
ASK (300 kHz; 1 kBps) –113 –111
FSK (300 kHz; +/–16 kHz; 1 kBps) –107 –104

Table 1 shows a comparison between from the receiver’s antenna. Figure ground, sets the receiver signal pro-
the sensitivity of the ATA5723/24 55 – a linear plot of signal strength cessing at full sensitivity. The con-
receivers and the ATA5743. This (dBm) against VRSSI – shows the nection to Vtt configures the receiver
illustrates the sensitivity improve- RSSI characteristics of the ATA572x. to reduce the sensitivity. In a practi-
ment, which is attained by the new cal application, this feature enables
receivers. The sensitivity reduction function an RKE application to define two
is an established feature of Atmel’s different receiving ranges around the
The RSSI output with a dynamic receiver family. The output voltage of vehicle.
range of 60 dB is another feature of the RSSI amplifier is internally com-
the ATA572x receivers. (Figure 2) The pared to a threshold voltage, which is Figure 6 and figure 7 show sche-
signal of the IF amplifier is enhanced determined by the value of the resis- matics of Atmel’s demoboards for
by the RSSI amplifier before it is tor (Rsens) at SENS pin. The resistor the ATA5723 and ATA5743. When
passed to the demodulator block must be connected to the power comparing the schematics of both
and this signal is available at the out- supply (Vs) or ground. The output of application boards, it is clearly seen
put pin. The RSSI output signal can the comparator is fed into the digital that the ATA5723 requires substan-
be used in applications to identify the control logic, which decides whether tially fewer additional elements for
signal strength of different transmit- the receiver operates in low or full its application – 12 when compared
ters in different positions or distances sensitivity. Connecting the Rsens to with the ATA5743’s 20. There are two
reasons for the reduction in exter-
nal elements. Firstly, in contrast to
RSSI Characteristics
the ATA5743, the ATA572x has an
3,5
integrated loop filter. Secondly, the
ground of the LNA in the ATA572x
3
is connected directly to ground and
does not required any compensa-
2,5
V_RSSI (V)

tion. For the ATA5743, an inductor-

capacitor combination is required to
2
achieve the best sensitivity.

1,5
For some applications, a typical image
rejection of 30 dB is sufficient. In this
1
case a front-end SAW filter is not
-120 -110 -100 -90 -80 -70 -60 -50 -40
necessary. For tougher requirements,
PIN (dBm)
a SAW filter is necessary to achieve
4.5V –40ºC 4.5V 25ºC 4.5V 85ºC 4.5V 105ºC the required selectivity. The receiving
5V –40ºC 5V 25ºC 5V 85ºC 5V 105ºC frequency response without a SAW
5.5V –40ºC 5.5V 25ºC 5.5V 85ºC 5.5V 105ºC front-end filter is illustrated in figure 8 .

Figure 5 RSSI Characteristics

www.atmel.com
34 Atmel Automotive Compilation, Vol. 4

VS +
C7 C6 IC_ACTIVE
2.2 µF 10 nF R2
Sensitivity Reduction
GND 56 kΩ
R3
ATA5723 27 kΩ

1 20
C14 SENS DATA DATA
2 19
33 nF IC_ACTIVE POLLING/_ON POLLING/_ON
3 18
CDEM DGND DATA_CLK
4 17
AVCC DATA_CLK
C13 5 16
10 nF TEST1 MODE C12 C11
6 15
RSSI DVCC
Test Pin 7 14
AGND XTAL2
8 13 Q1
COAX LNAREF XTAL1
9 12
LNA_IN TEST3
10 11
C17 LNAGND TEST2 C10
L3

Figure 6 ATA5723 Schematic (Matching to 50Ω)

VS +
C7 C6 IC_ACTIVE
2.2 µF 10 nF R2
Sensitivity Reduction
GND 56 kΩ to 150 kΩ
R3
ATA5743 ≥ 1.6 kΩ

1 20
SENS DATA DATA
2 19
C14 IC_ACTIVE POLLING/_ON POLLING/_ON
3 18
CDEM DGND DATA_CLK
4 17
AVCC DATA_CLK
C13 5 16
10 nF C15 TEST MODE
6 15 Q1
150 pF AGND DVCC
7 14
MIXVCC XTO
C3 8 13
LNAGND LFGND C11
9 12
LNA_IN LF
10 11
NC LFVCC
25 nH C8

C12
R1
C17 C16
50Ω L2
C9 C10

Figure 7 ATA5743 Schematic – 315 MHz (Matching to 50Ω)

 www.atmel.com 35

Summary Image Rejection vs. RF Frequency

10
The ATA572x receivers combine
inherited features such as integrated 0
IF filter, self-polling, bi-directional -10
data interface, sensitivity reduction,
-20
ASK, FSK, DATA_CLK, and digital
noise suppression with the addi- -30
(dB)

tional features such as logarithmic -40

RSSI output, high integration, and -50
relaxed efforts for RF matching. This
-60
combination creates flexible receiver
devices for RKE and TPMS automo- -70

tive applications. 430 431 432 433 434 435 436 437 438

(MHz)

4.5V –40ºC 4.5V 25ºC 4.5V 105ºC

5V –40ºC 5V 25ºC 5V 105ºC
5.5V –40ºC 5.5V 25ºC 5.5V 105ºC

Figure 8 Narrow Band Receiving Frequency Response

www.atmel.com
36 Atmel Automotive Compilation, Vol. 4

Infotainment

Radio

Moving Towards Digital Broadcasting:

Receivers for DAB and DMB
Dr. Martin Alles

The move from analog to digital stor- people have the possibility of receiving ing of about 2 – 3 MHz for the trans-
age or transmission is an ongoing around 1,000 different DAB services [1]. mission of one audio program, DAB
trend that is typified by changing audio The number of services and licenses is requires only approximately 1.5 MHz to
formats. The compact disc, first intro- rapidly changing. The DAB system is transmit 7 audio channels in CD qual-
duced in eighties, has all but rendered gaining interest not only from listeners, ity. Another reason is error-correction
the vinyl record obsolete. Technical but also from the automotive industry. codes, which can be used to reduce
advances such as re-writable CDs and DAB uses a frequency bandwidth of failures resulting from the transmission
data reduction has simplified music 1.536 MHz, which is sufficient for the channel. And finally, the transmission
recording making analog recordings concurrent transmission of approxi- power can be reduced while keeping
techniques with devices such as cas- mately seven audio programs. the same reception range. DAB typi-
sette recorders a thing of the past. cally transmits using 1 kW, whereas
With the introduction of the DVD, this A development extension of DAB has analog FM requires up to 100 kW for
digitalization trend continues, replac- resulted in a multimedia broadcasting similar transmitter coverage.
ing analog video recorders with digital system known as DMB, which uses
recorders. the DAB system to transmit video data. The DAB system was developed in
Five concurrent video channels can be Europe at the end of last century. One
Digital techniques are also common- transmitted with data rates of 200 – of the primary goals of the develop-
place in many communication systems, 240 kbit per second. A slide show and ment was to enable excellent recep-
for example, cordless telephones con- a data channel, bundled in one DAB tion under mobile conditions with a
vert analog speech information to digi- channel, can also be simultaneously low input power. The DAB system
tal signals, which are compressed and transmitted. Other digital broadcasting was one of the first systems to use
transmitted to the base station. Simi- systems include DVB-T for television, OFDM (orthogonal frequency division
larly so with mobile phones, speech HD Radio for audio transmission, and multiplex) techniques to distribute the
data is converted to digital data, then DRM. antenna signal. With this technique,
compressed and digitally transmitted. the signal uses up to 1536 carriers
The reasons behind the change from that are distributed in parallel. The DAB
In broadcasting, several digital sys- analog to digital, irrespective of the standard defines four different transmit
tems are currently available. One of medium, is that the use of (com- modes; each mode using a band-
the most well known is DAB (Digital pressed) digital data allows the trans- width of 1.536 MHz. The number of
Audio Broadcast), a technology for mission of more data over a given carriers and the carrier spacing varies
broadcasting of audio using digital bandwidth than analog transmission. depending on the DAB transmission
radio transmission. This system trans- This is referred to as “spectrum effi- mode used. The characteristics of the
mits digitally decoded audio data and ciency”. Comparing DAB with conven- four transmission modes are summa-
for several years has had an increas- tional analog FM transmission, we see rized in table 1. The first two modes,
ing global presence. Over 500 million that while FM needs a frequency spac- in particular, are used for the terrestrial
 www.atmel.com 37

transmission of DAB signals. Mode 1 the DAB receivers are completely vices. To enable video reception,
is normally used to cover large areas, synchronized to the transmitted sig- an additional external processor is
whereas mode 2 is employed to dis- nal during reception. As a result, it is required.
tribute the DAB signal in large towns possible to simultaneously receive all
and smaller areas. The remaining two services with one DAB channel using The ATR2732 front-end IC has been
modes were introduced for the satellite Atmel ’s baseband IC ATR2740.
®
developed as a highly integrated
reception of DAB signals (mode 3) and Users can receive audio, video, and tuner IC for DAB reception. It con-
to address the particular requirements data services at the same time. tains all the functional blocks required
of the Canadian landscape, where for clock generation and OFDM sig-
larger distances occur between trans- Data services, specified in the DAB nal conversion. It was designed
mitter stations (mode 4). standard include slide shows. An for operation in L-band (1452 MHz
application of this is the transmission – 1492 MHz) and VHF BIII (174 MHz
DAB was developed with a primary of a CD cover while listening to a – 240 MHz), but it can also cover the
focus on the issue of mobile recep- song. Broadcast websites, electronic recently introduced Chinese frequen-
tion. In contrast to FM broadcasting, program guides (EPG), and traffic cies below 174 MHz. The front-end
DAB/DMB uses a single-frequency information (TPEG) are other such contains gain-controlled LNAs, an
network. Echoes and delays, which DAB data services. Some automotive L-band mixer with a corresponding
may occur, are negated by the use manufacturers offer special DAB ser- PLL and a VHF-band mixer with a
of a special guard interval. The length vices to customers, including slides fractional PLL. The IF path contains
of this guard interval is chosen to fit shows or special data services. An three gain-controlled amplifiers. An
the delays that arise between two example of this type of service offer- adjustable antenna VHF BIII filter and
or more transmitters on the same ing is described on the NewsService an adjustable pre-selection filter for
frequency. A DAB receiver simply Journaline website [3].
®
L-band and VHF reception allows
disregards signals that are received automatic tuning alignment with the
within this guard interval. Diversity Atmel’s DAB solution includes a front-end. All functional blocks can
techniques, as used in FM reception, front-end ATR2732 and a baseband be controlled via the SPI bus. Fig-
are not necessary as DAB is a single- ATR2740. With these products, cus- ure 1 provides an overview of the
frequency network. Another differ- tomers can create a DAB receiver ATR2732’s functional blocks.
ence between FM and DAB is that suited for both audio and data ser-

Table 1 DAB System Parameters [2]

System Parameter Transmission Mode
I II III VI
Frame Duration 96 ms 24 ms 24 ms 48 ms
Guard Interval Duration 246 µs 62 µs 31 µs 123 µs
Nominal Maximum Transmitter Separation for SFN 96 km 24 km 12 km 48 km
Nominal Frequency Range for Mobile Reception ≤ 375 MHz ≤ 1.5 GHz ≤ 3 GHz ≤ 1.5 GHz
Symbol Duration used for Data 1 ms 250 µs 125 µs 500 µs
Number of Radiated Carriers 1536 384 192 768
Carrier Spacing 1 kHz 4 kHz 8 kHz 2 kHz
Bandwidth/Nominal Data Rate 1.536 MHz 1.536 MHz 1.536 MHz 1.536 MHz
Reserved Frequency Range 175 – 240 MHz 1,452 – 1,492 MHz
Availability Common Local Satellite Special Mode for
Canada

www.atmel.com
38 Atmel Automotive Compilation, Vol. 4

Preselection SAW Band-

Filter Filter pass

Antenna Passive Antenna

Diplexer Tank VHF LNA VHF Mixer 1st IF Amplifier 2nd IF Amplifier
To Baseband
VHF
ADC

Bandpass L-band LNA

L-band
Gain A PWR
Balun RSSI
Pin-diode cntl D Cntl
Attenuator

Dielectric
Bandpass L-band Vtune
Mixer Gen.

Control Unit

L-band
VCO
PLL

VHF
VCO SPI Interface
Frac. PLL

To Baseband

Figure 1 Front-end IC ATR2732 with External Circuitry

DAB usually uses signals in the VHF block adjusts the pass-band of this A DAB signal in the L-band fre-
range (174 – 240 MHz) and L-band filter to the required frequency. This fil- quency passes a high-pass filter,
(1,452 – 1,492 MHz). The signal ter is used – together with the antenna which is part of the passive diplexer.
flow for VHF reception starts at the tank – to get excellent image rejec- The signal is bandpass filtered using
antenna or the RF connector. The tion and sufficient far-off selectivity. a simple LC-filter with low insertion
signal passes a pin-diode attenu- After passing this filter, the RF signal is loss and converted to a balanced
ator block, which can be used for mixed down to a fixed IF frequency of signal with a small balun. This balun
strong incoming signals and a low- 38.912 MHz. The IF signal is amplified is also used to convert the character-
pass filter, which is part of a passive and passed to a SAW filter. The SAW istic impedance of the antenna input
diplexer. The diplexer is used, instead filter is necessary for adjacent channel (usually 50 Ohm) to the required
of an antenna switch, to separate reduction and far-off selectivity close impedance of the integrated L-band
VHF signals from L-band signals. to the chosen reception channel. The LNA. The internal variable gain L-
The VHF signal is bandpass filtered signal enters the IC again and is ampli- band LNA amplifies the signal. A
with an antenna tank circuitry that is fied in the first IF variable-gain amplifier dielectric bandpass filter between
automatically adjusted to the recep- followed by a simple LC-bandpass fil- L-band LNA output and L-band
tion frequency. A variable-gain VHF ter. Finally, the DAB signal is amplified mixer input is used to get sufficient
LNA amplifies the signal. The signal to the desired IF output level using the L-band image rejection and rejection
leaves the front-end IC and is fed to second IF amplifier. The signal leaves of far-off signals. The L-band mixer
an external pre-selection filter. This fil- the front-end IC and is passed to the converts the antenna signal to the
ter has an automatic tuner alignment, DAB baseband IC ATR2740. VHF BIII frequency regime (174 MHz
i.e., the tuning-voltage generation – 240 MHz). The output of the L-
 www.atmel.com 39

Marker 1 [T1] RBW 300 kHz RF Att 0 dB Marker 1 [T1] RBW 300 kHz RF Att 0 dB
Ref Lv1 -94.92 dBm VBW 300 kHz Ref Lv1 -69.55 dBm VBW 300 kHz
-30 dBm 200.00000000 MHz SWT 5 ms Unit dBm -20 dBm 77.82400000 MHz SWT 5 ms Unit dBm
-30 -20
A A
-40 -30
band mixer is internally connected to -50 -40

the output of the VHF-LNA. -60

1AP
-50
1AP
-70 -60

-80 -70
The use of the external filters results -90 -80

in excellent reception performance -100 -90

-110
together with high sensitivity and -100

-120 -110
large signal behavior. The noise figure -130 -120
Center 225 MHz 10 MHz/ Span 100 MHz Center 38.912 MHz 7.7824 MHz/ Span 77.824 MHz
of the receiver is below 3 dB for VHF Date: 04.APR.1906 11:00:59 Date: 04.APR.1906 11:55:15

reception and approximately 3 dB

for L-band reception including all Fig. 2 Graph on the left shows a typical antenna signal, with the wanted DAB
external components. This results in signal in the center. The graph on the right shows the IF signal at the output of the
sensitivity values of about –100 dBm tuner, with the wanted DAB signal in the center. This DAB signal is amplified by
for both reception bands for bit 65 dB (yellow arrow) and the power of the disturbing signal is reduced by more
error rates below 1E-4 according to than 20 dB (blue arrow).
EN50248. The blocking behavior – as
also specified in EN50248 – is 50 dB value. It is also possible to attenuate The efforts needed to filter the
for far-off selectivity, i.e., a distance of the input signal by 20 dB for large required reception signal can be
5 MHz and more from the center fre- signals using an external pin-diode. demonstrated with a typical example
quency. In terms of adjacent channel that occurs during the reception of
suppression, approximately 39 dB The complete AGC gain control DAB signals. Figure 2 demonstrates
can be reached. Both values may be range of the ATR2732 is higher than a typical antenna scenario. The DAB
optimized to even higher values with 100 dB, but it is also possible, at the signal at the central frequency can
special software control. same time, to keep the third-order be clearly seen. In addition, some
intermodulation products more than disturbance signals coming from
The Atmel DAB chipset has been 40 dB below the required signals. analog TV stations are present at
developed according to the exacting The use of AGC control loops ensures lower frequencies. This spectrum is
requirements of automotive applica- that under all conditions, the optimum the input signal of the DAB front-end
tions. This includes the allowed tem- power level of the IF level is present at ATR2732. The signal power of the
perature range as well as the fabri- the baseband’s ADC converter. unwanted TV signal is approximately
cation quality. However, the main 30 dB higher than the required DAB
goal for automotive applications is Superior performance under automo- signal. The input spectrum is filtered
excellent reception and decoding of tive conditions, is also possible using by the external tuned filters and the
signals under critical reception con- automatic tuner alignment (ATA). SAW filter. It is amplified and con-
ditions. Since an automotive DAB This technique uses external filters, verted to the fixed IF frequency of
receiver is moving, the front-end part which are aligned to the reception 38.912 MHz. The output IF signal
must be able to convert the antenna frequency. These filters have a typical resulting from the filtering and con-
signal under rapidly changing condi- 3 dB bandwidth of about 6 MHz. The version is shown in the right hand
tions. The reception must be good center frequency of these filters is graph. The required DAB signal has
when there is a large distance to the aligned to the required reception fre- been amplified by 65 dB. At the
nearest transmitter i.e., when the sig- quency. The main purpose of these same time, the unwanted TV signals
nal is close to the sensitivity limit. The filters is to allow a limited input fre- have been attenuated by 20 dB and
reception must also be good if the quency range in order to prevent the are hardly visible inside the noise
transmitter is very close. As DAB and receiver from additional unwanted floor of the spectrum analyzer.
DMB use an OFDM coding scheme, signals, which may be received from
amplifiers that operate under linear the antenna. Although this requires Atmel has developed a DAB module
conditions are required. This require- a little bit more effort during the pro- (figure 3), which is part of a com-
ment can be met using AGC con- duction of the DAB receiver, it gives plete DAB evaluation kit containing
trolled amplifiers, which adopt the excellent performance for far-off the digital broadcast receiver, power
amplification to a defined threshold selectivity. supply, antennas, loudspeakers, and

www.atmel.com
40 Atmel Automotive Compilation, Vol. 4

Figure 3 Atmel DAB Module, Front and Back

the necessary software. (Figure 4) has made it a crucial tool for auto- systems, it can also be used for the
Although this kit has been developed motive manufacturers for design-in development of USB dongles and
both for performance evaluation activities. Atmel’s DAB solution con- integrated receivers for reception
of Atmel’s chipset under lab condi- tains a front-end IC ATR2732 and a and decoding of DMB signals.
tions and for software development, baseband IC ATR2740. Despite the
it can also be used for drive tests. fact that this device has been primar-
The superior performance of this kit ily developed for use in automotive
 www.atmel.com 41

Figure 4 Atmel DAB/DMB Evaluation Kit

Abbreviations IC Integrated Circuit References

IF Intermediate Frequency
ADC Analog-to-Digital Converter LNA Low-noise Amplifier [1] http://worlddab.org
ATA Automatic Tuner Alignment OFDM Orthogonal Frequency [2] Eureka-147 - Digital Audio Broad-
CD Compact Disc Division Multiplex casting, http://worlddab.org
DAB Digital Audio Broadcasting PLL Phase-locked Loop [3] www.journaline.de
DRM Digital Radio Mondial RF Radio Frequency
DVB-T Digital Video Broadcasting SFN Single-frequency Network
- Terrestrial SW Software
DVD Digital Versatile Disc VHF Very High Frequency
FM Frequency Modulation

www.atmel.com
42 Atmel Automotive Compilation, Vol. 4

Safety

TPMS

ATA6285/ATA6286 – An Ideal Solution

for Low-power Applications
Martin Motz, Michael Hahnen

Atmel® has developed two smart RF Features

microtransmitter ICs for 315 MHz
(ATA6285) and 433 MHz (ATA6286) 8-Kbyte In-system Self Programmable Highly Sensitive 1D-LF Receiver
Flash
based on the upgraded low-leakage Programmable 125 kHz Wake-up
Optional Boot Code Section with Inde- Receiver Channel with 1.3 µA Current
CMOS flash technology 35.7. These pendent Lock Bits Consumption (typical) in Listing Mode
devices combine the functionality of an
512 Byte SRAM Programmable Voltage Monitor
RF transmitter with a programmable
320 (256 + 64) Byte EEPROM System Clock Management and Clock
AVR® microcontroller in a single QFN32 Monitoring
Programming Lock for Software
package (5 mm x 5 mm). Security Master/Slave SPI Serial Interface
Programmable Watchdog/Interval Internal Calibrated RC Oscillator
The integrated transmitters are Timer with Separate Internal Calibrated
Extremely Low-power Oscillator Three Sleep Modes: Idle, Sensor
Atmel’s UHF PLL transmitter ICs, Noise Reduction, and Power-down
ATA5756 and ATA5757, which are Two 16-bit Timer/Counter with
Compare Mode, Capture Mode, and Operating Voltage Range: 2.0V – 3.6V
currently in use in over 4 million cars, On-chip Digital Data Modulator Circuitry Temperature Range: –40°C to 125°C
and which achieve a typical output Integrated On-chip Temperature Sensor 6 dBm Output Power with 8 mA Active
power of 6 dBm using single-ended with Thermal Shutdown Function Current Consumption (typically) in
antennas. The integrated microcon- Sensor Interface for External Pressure Transmission Mode
Sensor and Motion Sensor One Interface Can be Configured for
troller is Atmel’s in-system self-pro-
Three Interfaces for Simple Capacitive Motion Wake-up (3 pF to 5 pF)
grammable low-power flash AVR
Sensors (2 pF to 16 pF).
RISC 8-bit microcontroller.
QFN32 Package 5 mm x 5 mm

The ATA6285 and ATA6286 devices

also incorporate a highly sensitive
1D-LF receiver, an on-chip tempera- and the chemical industry, both indus- devices. Such devices require micro-
ture sensor, and a dedicated ADC trial and automotive telemetric applica- controllers with minimum possible
(Anolog-to-Digital Converter) for the tions, and, in particular, for TPMS (tire power-consumption. For power-effi-
connection of capacitive sensors. pressure monitoring systems). ciency, the ATA628x offers a number
of power-down modes, the lowest of
These devices are particularly suit- which consumes 0.5 µA at 3.6V and
able for battery-driven hermetically- Ultra Low +85°C. In this mode (power-down
sealed electronics that require a long Power-down Mode current), all clocks are switched off and
battery life such as battery-powered the microcontroller is in sleep mode.
tags for asset tracking, trip recorder Power consumption is a critical factor
(tacograph), and security systems, for battery-driven devices, and in par- In certain circumstances, battery-
wireless sensor elements in buildings ticular, for long-life hermetically-sealed driven devices need to wake-up after
 www.atmel.com 43

Table 1 Competitor Comparison

ATA628x Competitor 1 Competitor 2 Competitor 3
Program Memory 8 KB Flash 2 KB Flash 8 KB Flash 2 KB Flash
RAM 256 Byte 128 Byte 512 Byte 128 Byte
EEPROM 256 + 64 Byte 256 Byte 256 Byte
Voltage Range 2.0 – 3.6V 2.0 – 5.5V 1.8 – 3.6V 1.8 – 3.3V
Power-down Current at 0.5 µA 1.5 µA 4.0 µA 0.2 µA
3V/85°C
Power-down Timer 1.2 µA 4.0 µA 4.5 µA 350 µA
Active at 3V/85°C
µC Active without RF at 1200 µA 220 µA 340 – 390 µA 2000 µA
1 MHz
Power-down LF Active 1.3 µA Not Available Not Available Not Available
RF Current During Trans- 8.5 mA Not Available Not Available 11 mA
mision
RF Output Power 6 dBm Not Available Not Available 5 dBm
ADC 10 Bit 10 Bit 10 Bit Not Available
Temp. Sensor Yes Not Available Yes Not Available
Temp. Shutdown Yes Not Available Not Available Not Available

a defined period of time has elapsed. instruction required when reading and Sample Power Con-
For this purpose, the ATA628x uses an writing data to the RAM resulting in sumption Calculations
internal interval timer, which is clocked high code efficiency.
by an internal 90-kHz oscillator. In this The following calculations illustrate
mode (power-down timer active), the In general, applications using the the ultra low-power consumption of
maximum power consumption at ATA628x are typically only active for the ATA628x in an application such as
3.6V and +85°C is 1.2 µA. a small percent of the time (10-15%) TPMS. The measurement intervals are
and have long power-down times based on typical customer requests.
The ATA628x has an active current at (85%). This pattern of activity further
1 MHz of 1200 µA. Although the active negates the impact of the elevated With these measurement intervals, a
current consumption of the ATA628x active current. Table 1 shows a com- TPMS using Atmel’s ATA628x con-
is greater than that of competitor parison between the ATA628x and sumes approximately 160 mAh bat-
microcontrollers (see table 1 competi- some of our main competitors. tery power over 10 years. Taking the
tor comparison), the high data-quote self-discharge of the battery and the
efficiency of the AVR compensates for In addition, when compared with leakage current through the blocking
the larger current consumption and embedded integrated sensor ICs, the capacitors into account, a battery with
keeps the overall power consumption ATA628x offers a far lower current 350 mAh should be sufficient. Figure
at a minimum. The high data-quote consumption in power-down mode 1 shows the current distribution of a
efficiency of the AVR is achieved by (timer active) (at least 50% less cur- TMPS over 10 years. From figure 1
its hardware multiplier and large regis- rent consumption). we can see that more than 50% of
ter file, which reduces the number of the total required power is consumed

www.atmel.com
44 Atmel Automotive Compilation, Vol. 4

by the power-down current together Table 2 Typical Customer-specified Measurement Intervals

with the self discharge of the battery Measurement Intervals Time (In Seconds)
and the leakage current through the Pressure Measurement Interval (During Driving) 2
blocking capacitors. Pressure Measurement Interval (Not in Motion) 10
Motion Sensor Measurement Interval (Driving) 20
Motion Sensor Measurement Interval (Not in Motion) 20
Power-saving Using Temperature Measurement Interval (Driving) 2
Wake-up Modes Temperature Measurement Interval (Not in Motion) 10
RF Data Transmission Interval (Driving) 60
For additional power-saving pur- RF Data Transmission Interval (Not in Motion) 3600
poses, the ATA628x is protected
against accidental wake-ups result-
ing from disturbances picked up by ent wake-up modes. During the lis- ATA628x consumes only 1.4 µA and
the LF receiver. To prevent this, the tening mode, when the LF receiver the LF receiver has a sensitivity of
LF receiver has a number of differ- is looking for an LF signal, the 1 mVRMS. For applications with few

Temperature Measurement
8% Self Discharge
Pressure Measurement
8% 16%

RF Transmission
5%

Leakage Charge
Others
(Capacitor)
4%
7%

Power-down Charge
52%

Figure 1 Power Current Distribution Over 10 Years

 www.atmel.com 45

Start Gap Detection

Preamble Start Gap
Signal Data

Data

Wake up

LFEN

Start Signal Detection

Preamble Start Signal
Signal Data

Data

Wake up

LFEN

Figure 2 Start-gap and Start-signal LF Wake-up Modes

potential disturbances, two wake-up detection and header & ID detection. Typical ATA628x-based
modes are available: start-gap and The use of the preamble, the gap, the TPMS Application
start-signal. In both these modes, an 7-bit header, and the 16-bit ID should
interrupt is invoked to wake-up the prevent almost any erroneous wake- One of the primary usage areas for
CPU if a preamble followed by a gap ups as a result of disturbances at the the ultra low-power consumption
is detected by the LR receiver. Figure LF receiver input. feature of the ATA628x is in a tire
2 illustrates both of these wake-up
modes. Header Detection

Signal Preamble Start Header Data Data Data

Header wake-up mode can be used Gap
in applications with a greater poten- Data
tial for disturbance to prevent acci- Wake up
dental wake-ups. In this mode, an
LFBM
interrupt is invoked to wake up the
CPU if a preamble followed by a gap LFEN

and a 7-bit header are detected by

the LR receiver.
Header & ID Detection
Additionally, a 16-bit wake-up ID can
Signal Preamble Start Header Wake-up Data Data Data
be used to further reduce the pos- Gap ID

sibility of disturbances. In this case, Data

an interrupt is only invoked if the LF Wake up
receiver detects the preamble, the
LFEN
gap, the 7-bit header, and addition-
ally the 16-bit ID. Figure 3 shows both
advanced wake-up modes: header Figure 3 LF Receiver Wake-up Modes Header and Header & Wake-up ID

www.atmel.com
46 Atmel Automotive Compilation, Vol. 4

Standard TPMS System

Pressure
Sensor RF Micro-
Transmitters
ATA6285 TPMS LIN MCM
Receiver IC
Motion ATA6286 ATA6602
433 or 315 MHz ATA5745
Sensor Polling
ATA5746 LIN
Bit Check

E
RK

ECU

Figure 4 Standard TPMS System

pressure monitoring system (TPMS). monitor the air pressure inside the Capacitive Sensor Interface
A standard TPMS system requires a wheel. This measurement data is
life-time of approximately 10 years; transmitted to a UHF receiver in the Figure 5 shows a typical ATA628x
hence, power consumption is para- vehicle. (Figure 4) TPMS application. External capaci-
mount. Sensor modules are typically tance sensors elements can be con-
mounted at the tire rim, where they nected to pins 15, 16, and 17. These
VDD

Battery

Motion Pressure
Sensor Sensor

16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9
17 8
18 7
19 6
20 5
ATA628x
21 4
22 3
23 2 RF
24 1 Loop Antenna
25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 1) ISP Interface

1) ISP: In-System Programmable

Flash Interface

Figure 5 Typical ATA628x-based TPMS with Pure Capacitive Pressure and Motion Sensor Elements
 www.atmel.com 47

CREFx

C
CREF2 CREF6 Control CX
fC

CS0 = CEX0 MUX f

S0 (CEX0) C0

CS1 = CEX1
S1 (CEX1)

Control
CS2 = CEX2
S2 (CEX2)

SC CS (2:0) SRCC (1:0) SEN (1:0)

Figure 6 Capacitive Sensor Interface Block Diagram

Table 3 Pin Descriptions

Pin Number Pin Name Function
15 S0 Sensor Input 0 – Pressure Sensor
16 S1 Sensor Input 1 – Motion Sensor
17 S2 Sensor Input 2 – Motion Sensor

pins are available for capactive range The frequency output of the sen- as capture timer to measure the time
of 2 pF to 16 pF, with one channel sor interface, which represents the taken to receive this number of pulses.
configured as motion wake-up in capacitor value, can be measured At first, one of the internal reference
the range of 3 pF to 5 pF. See table using a combination of two timers capacitor should be measured. The
3 for further details. Figure 6 shows inside the ATA628x. The external second measurement measures the
a block diagram of this ADC sensor pressure-dependent capacitor is second reference capacitor and the
interface. measured against two internal refer- third measurement is done with the
ence capacitors. The measurement pressure-dependent capacitor. The
The sensor interface carries out a is shown in figure 7. pressure-dependent capacitor value
capacity-to-frequency conversion of can be calculated using the following
the external or internal capacitors. Timer 2 is programmed to count the formula:
The capacitor is selected by the mul- number of pulses coming from the
tiplexer by setting the SCCR register. sensor interface and timer 3 is used

CSensor = T(Sensor) - T(Ref1) (CRef2 - CRef1) + CRef1

T(Ref2) - T(Ref1)

www.atmel.com
48 Atmel Automotive Compilation, Vol. 4

CLT = CLKMeasure

S0 Capacitor SENO T2 Com

P-sensor Sensor Timer 2 Timer 3 T3 CAP-
Interface Capture Interrupt

Timer/Counter 2

TC = 1/fC 16-bit Compare Register

TC 16-bit Comparator

SENO
16-bit Counter 2
T(CX)
T(CX)
Timer/Counter 2

16-bit Capture Register

Capture
Interrupt
CLKMeasure
16-bit Counter 3 OVF

Figure 7 Capacitor Measurement

Tests with calibrated capacitive sen- A motion wake-up detection circuit is calibrated capacitive sensor element
sor elements demonstrate that it is also connected to the sensor inter- with an inbuilt logic block, which
possible to achieve pressure accu- face. This circuit is used in sensor generates a signal-conditioned pulse
racy greater than +/- 75 mbar. modules for tire pressure monitor- width modulation (PWM) output.
ing systems to detect if the vehicle This digital output is decoded by the
The sensor measurement is carried is moving. The interval time of the ATA628x. This digital PWN signal is
out in a special power-down mode. motion detection measurement is easier to handle than the analog value
This mode is called sensor noise programmed with timer 0. The mea- transmitted from the pressure sensor
reduction mode. This mode was surement itself uses only 100 µs and described in the previous section as
designed to reduce the disturbance consumes 10 µA. parasitic values must be taken into
coming from the microcontroller and account for the analog value. This
to use as little power as possible for Alternative ATA628x- pressure sensor can be connected
the AD conversion. With the use of based TPMS to the bi-directional I/O port, pin 25.
the noise reduction mode, the AD This configuration can also optionally
conversion of the pressure sensor An alternative configuration of a include a roll-switch connected to pin
element consumes 140/450 µA at a TPMS system using the ATA628x is 31, and a motion sensor connected
clock of 1/4 MHz. shown in figure 8. This uses a pre- at pins 16 and 17.
 www.atmel.com 49

VDD

Battery

Motion
Sensor

16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9
17 8
18 7
19 6
20 5
ATA628x
21 4
22 3
23 2 RF
24 1 Loop Antenna
25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 1) ISP Interface

1) ISP: In-system Programmable

Pressure Roll
Flash Interface
Sensor Switch

Figure 8 ATA628x-based TPMS with PWM Output Pressure Sensor and Optional Motion Sensor or Roll-switch

Additional ATA628x ATA682x can be combined with

Applications Atmel’s ATA5811/12 or ATA5823/24
transceivers to enable greater read-
The ATA628x is not only restricted to ing and writing distances.
the automotive industry, but is also
ideally suited for battery-powered The ATA682x can also be used for
telemetric applications in the indus- energy-metering. Instead of manu-
trial area, in particular those requiring ally reading an electricity meter, the
extended temperature ranges from current status of a meter can be
–40 to +125 °C. transmitted to a reader device fol-
lowing a wake-up. The requirement
The ATA682x can also be used for for encryption of such telemetric
telemetric applications that require information makes the ATA682x, with
larger reading and writing distances, its in-built microprocessor, an ideal
for example, asset tracking and solution.
transportation of valuable industrial
goods in a port environment. The

www.atmel.com
50 Atmel Automotive Compilation, Vol. 4

Safety

Image Processing for

Automotive Safety Applications Using
AVR32 Processors
Etienne Beneteau

Introduction The range of technology that can be by various factors, including driver
integrated into cars is ever increasing distraction, inattention, or drowsi-
In Europe, road accidents cause and the application in road safety and ness. The Lane Departure Warning
around 45,500 deaths and over one convenience is reported to be the system generates a warning to alert
million serious injuries each year. one of the major source of growth. the driver that the vehicle is about to
Some estimates indicate that world- move out of its lane.“
wide annual figures are at around In this trend, the introduction of cam-
500,000 deaths and five million seri- era technology is foreseen to be a Lane departure warning (LDW) sys-
ous injuries. Automotive safety is an relevant way to achieve road-user tems are about to migrate from suc-
issue of global significance, with two protection enhancement. This con- cessful applications in heavy com-
main areas where automotive indus- sists of a combination of sensors and mercial vehicles into the car and light
try enhancements are focusing: processing circuits optimized and truck market. The LDW system is
• Primary safety the purpose of highly integrated to reach the cost directly aimed at reducing the num-
which is to avoid an accident requirements of automotive industry. ber of vehicles inadvertently leaving
• Secondary safety aimed at minimiz- the road. Strategy analytics exam-
ing the consequences of an acci- This article describes the imple- ines the potential market demand
dent (minimizing injuries to vehicle mentation of a demonstrator using and predicts the realistic LDW sys-
occupants and other road users) the new Atmel® AVR®32 processor, tem forecast to reach a total of 3.6
opening the way for highly integrated million units by 2010.
Systems integration and improved image processing systems for auto-
sensor availability are driving the motives. Today, the LDW is already imple-
progress in primary and secondary mented in commercial cars such as
safety systems. In primary safety the Lexus Infinity or more recently the
systems, contribution to casualty Application Focus: Citroen C4 model following different
reduction comes with systems that Lane Departure principles.
can increase the performance of Warning (LDW)
driving. For secondary safety sys- The C4 LDW uses six infrared sen-
tems, the number of systems is “Studies show that 55% of fatal acci- sors, which are fitted under the front
growing aggressively; one of the dents in the U.S. are caused by lane bumper, three on each side. Each
most famous current applications is departure,” said Robert Yakushi, sensor is equipped with an infrared
driver and passenger airbags, which Director, Product Safety, Regula- light-emitting diode and a detection
equip 80% of new light vehicles sold tory, Accessory Quality, Nissan North cell. Lane departures are detected by
in Europe today. America, Inc. “These are caused variations in the reflections from the
 www.atmel.com 51

Figure 1 Lane Departure Vision System

infrared beams emitted by the diode ture. The processing power required • Single-cycle load/store instruc-
onto the road. is of course higher than for IR sensor tions with pointer arithmetic that
techniques. reduce cycles required for load/
INRETS/LIVIC, Interaction Vehicle- store, accurate branch prediction
Infrastructure-Drivers research labo- Proposed Embedded with zero-penalty branches
ratory, a French laboratory based Platform: AVR32, • Maximizing code density to reduce
in Versailles, in collaboration with High-performance cache misses
the CNRS/LASMEA French labo- 32-bit Microcontroller
ratory based in Clermont-Ferrand, The AT32AP7000, the first AVR32
has developed another technique The AVR32 is a high-performance derivative, runs at frequency of up
that is based on imagers (optical 32-bit RISC microprocessor core to 150 MHz. It includes a vectored
sensors) instead of IR sensors. A introduced by Atmel at the begin- multiplier co-processor, 32 KB on-
single imager system running on an ning of 2006. This new architecture chip SRAM, 16 KB instruction and
embedded platform, on which soft- is designed to do more processing 16 KB data caches, Memory Man-
ware redundancy is applied, is capa- per clock cycle so the same through- agement Unit, DMA for high-speed
ble of providing a reliable, robust, put can be achieved at a lower clock peripherals and peripheral DMA con-
and accurate feedback to the driver. frequency. In fact, the AVR32 CPU troller that allows data to be trans-
This assistance feature can iden- executes about three times as much ferred between peripherals such as a
tify a vehicle’s position in relation to processing per clock cycle compared CMOS camera and memories with-
lane boundary markings by using a to other 32-bit microcontrollers. This out wasting processor cycles. The
small camera attached to the inside means the computational-intensive processor also includes a rich set of
rearview mirror scopes. If the vehicle algorithms required for today’s appli- DSP and SIMD instructions, which
should deviate too strongly from its cations can be executed at a lower are very useful for image processing.
ideal course of travel, the system will clock rate, with substantially less In standard mode, it can execute 16
send out a warning to drivers before power consumption. or 32-bit instructions without switch-
they potentially go off the road. ing modes. Most instructions are
The AVR32 core has been designed 16-bit, which reduces code size and
The benefits of this image processing with a special emphasis on: effectively increases the cache per-
approach is that it supports sophis- • Maximizing the use of computa- formance (more instructions can fit
ticated algorithms handling various tional resources with a 7-stage pipe- into the cache).
road and weather conditions and it line and 3 parallel sub-pipelines that
allows the anticipation of events and support automatic data forwarding
warns the drivers prior to lane depar- and out-of-order execution

www.atmel.com
52 Atmel Automotive Compilation, Vol. 4

VMU
AVR32 AP CPU Coprocessor

Nexus Class 3
16-KB ICACHE MMU 16-KB DCACHE
OCD
DMA

PHY USB HS Device 16-KB SRAM

16-KB SRAM
Image Sensor
DMA

Interface
DMA Controller
DMA

Ethernet MAC0
Bus Matrix
EBI
DMA
Input/Output Pins

Ethernet MAC1
SDRAM
Controller
DMA

LCD Controller
ECC
Peripheral DMA
Static Memory

Input/Output Pins
Controller
Controller

PS2
System Manager
Peripheral Peripheral
TWI Bridge Bridge
PIO

INTC
Peripheral Bus B

USART0 EMAC0
USART1 PWM
PDC

PIO

EMAC1
USART2
ISI
Peripheral Bus A

USART3
TC0
USB
TC1
BUS Matrix
SPI0
PDC

SMC
DMA

SPI1 DAC
SDRAM
ECC
DMA

AC97
SSC0 Configuration
PDC

SSC1 Registers
SSC2
DMA

MCI

Peripheral Bus A

Figure 2 AP7000 Block Diagram

 www.atmel.com 53

Application Demon-
strator Description Figure 4 LDW Application Demonstrator

The LDW algorithm, initially devel- an SD card available on the STK1000 of the Inrets/Livic algorithm devel-
oped on a PC platform, has been kit, on which the complete program oped in C/C++ inside the software
ported to the AT32AP7000 dedi- and Linux OS is also resident. A 128- architecture. The complete code is
cated to multimedia, communica- MB SD card is sufficient to store a full then compiled on the AVR32 using
tion, and image processing applica- sequence together with the applica- the G++ compiler. Some optimiza-
tions. The environment has been set tion code. tions are performed smoothly by
up with the following elements: introducing SIMD instructions as well
• AT32STK1000 development kit A simple man-machine interface is as dedicated co-processing such as
with AVR32 clocked at 150 MHz performed using 2 buttons to turn Vector Multiplication Unit instructions
• Linux® OS 2.6 with a full AVR32 the algorithm on/off or to change the in some software libraries.
module support visual information for the user. Sec-
• A free-of-charge GCC C/C++ ondly, real-time image processing The result is very impressive with
cross compiler for AVR32 target is shown on the LCD TFT screen of a system capable of processing
In order to have an application dem- the development kit divided in four more than 10 fps (frame per sec-
onstrator, it is clear that images have regions, each one showing different ond) images, which is close to what
to be produced from pre-recorded view of the processing. system manufacturers expect for
image database before having a such applications as it shall repre-
complete sub-system installed in a The software implementation is quite sent around 5 meters at a speed of
vehicle. Thus, images are stored on straightforward, with the integration 200km/h.

The lane detection is quite robust in

STK1000 Board various test cases, even with adverse
weather conditions. There is also a
AVR32 Image Data
Coprocessing clear signal notification in the event of
AP7000
lane changes and automatic shutoff
when no lane markings are present.
Buttons PIO
LEDs Interface
Display The system delivers different outputs
CPU
Controller
Memory such as the lane geometry (width,
Database
Interface curvature and curvature evolution) or
the vehicle dynamics (lateral position,
yaw, pitch). Therefore, an additional
RAM LED Screen direct application could be drowsi-
ness detection as the driver behav-
ior will be following typical clothoid
External
VGA Screen curve given by the curvature evolu-
tion parameters.
Figure 3 Demonstrator System Diagram

www.atmel.com
54 Atmel Automotive Compilation, Vol. 4

Conclusion Linux OS provides a simple way to system platform for designers. New
port applications as many drivers for applications can be developed in
Atmel provides a complete devel- peripherals have been already devel- a very short time using this sys-
opment environment to system oped. Furthermore, free-of-charge tem as a basis. New technologies
designers. Combining the knowl- compilers and tools maintain low such as vision systems may sooner
edge gathered from the participa- costs in the first step toward dem- rather than later enter the automotive
tion in European projects dealing onstration. arena.
with image processing applications
for automotives with the unique and Final systems with CMOS imagers
powerful AVR32 architecture results can be developed fairly quickly by
in an efficient system implementa- interfacing the sensor directly to the
tion and targeted future automotive AVR32 through its on-chip camera Originally printed in Hanser Automotive,
safety applications. interface, providing an optimized November 2006.
 www.atmel.com 55

Body
Electronics

Door

Anti-pinch System for Electric

Windows Using an AVR 8-bit Flash
Microcontroller
Thierry Corbière

Automotive motorized windows cars. The ability of dense electron- powered window but which can be
or doors that close automatically ics to improve control sensors and easily adapted to any other moving
involve the risk of trapping, squeez- actuators is utilized to enhance part.
ing, or injuring people. They must comfort and safety in cars. Most of
reverse their movement if the force middle and upper-class vehicles are The Standards
applied by the motor is higher than equipped with motorized window or
the normalized limit. The feature door systems. The majority of this Power-operated automotive win-
requires the constant monitoring of equipment comes with full automa- dows are governed by international
the speed, current, and position of tion, however, it must also be accom- standards: MVSS118 in the USA or
the glass. For cost and simplicity, the panied by safety systems to prevent 74/60/EEC in Europe. The require-
system described in this article uses injury to people or mechanical deg- ments specified in these standards
a universal brush motor equipped radation. The legislation offers a set can be summarized as follows:
with hall-effect sensors. The detec- of rules to which powered systems • Detection area: 4 mm to 200 mm
tion algorithm is based on speed and must comply. This is particularly true • Maximum pinch force = 100N
torque derivate and has been verified for window lifts or sliding doors. An • Reverse direction on a pinch
for robustness and fault tolerance. It application note describes how to • Tests with determined deflection
is applicable to all Atmel AVR Flash
® ®
implement an anti-pinch algorithm, ratio objects: 5N/mm to 20N/mm
microcontrollers with an A/D con- which was initially developed for a
verter and interrupt-on-Change I/O.

While this article describes the basic

principles, a complete description of
the implementation is available at the
following link: http://www.atmel.com/
dyn/products/app_notes.asp?family_
id=607.

Powered Equipment
in Modern Cars

Today, electronic components and

systems account for over 20% of
the cost of a high-end passenger Figure 1 Anti-pinch Window Lift Rules as Per MVSS118

www.atmel.com
56 Atmel Automotive Compilation, Vol. 4

Hardware • Maximum exerted force of 100N Pinch Detection

Considerations • Reverse direction on pinch detection Algorithm
• Normalized tests for validation
Different detection strategies are avail- It has to be adapted as: Usual pinch-detection algorithm
able to determine whether an obstacle • The mechanical elements involved operation uses indirect measure-
is entering the critical pinching area. in the lift system vary with time ments from the window-lift system:
(aging, local deformation, wear, • Current (torque)
Without mechanical contact: the etc.) • Position (speed)
reaction occurs before the pinch • The electrical characteristics can
effort is exerted on the object. This is evolve significantly The algorithm detailed in the related
the optimal protection since no force • Environmental factors such as application note combines two tech-
is applied to the obstacle. It does not temperature, moisture, frost etc. niques based on:
depend on vibration, aerodynamic can affect the friction forces • Calibrated torque stored in non-
variations, or deformations. How- volatile memory: preliminary learn-
ever, this requires integrated sensors The system should not react to dis- ing sequence is executed and
(infrared, ultrasonic, etc.) and with turbances nor detect inopportune torque values are stored in mem-
their electronic modules and wires, pinches. It must be robust enough to ory. This is quite memory consum-
this leads to additional costs. withstand air friction, road vibration, ing and requires regular calibration
power-cuts, etc. sequences.
With mechanical contact: the pres- • Speed derivate calculation: This
sure measurement tells the system method requires less memory, but
when an object is being pinched. Solution Using needs more computing power and
Designers have two fundamental Motor’s Physical takes benefit from the two different
technologies available: Parameters methods.

• Direct measurements: force sen- The force applied to the glass can be
sors or contactors are integrated extrapolated from the current through AVR Implementation
on the door seal. These solutions the motor. The position of the moving
are costly and reduce the styling elements permanently provides infor- The algorithm detailed in the previous
possibilities for window/door mation on speed. Both parameters paragraphs has been implemented
designs can then be used to determine if an and tested using an AVR ATmega88-
• Indirect measurements via physi- obstacle has been encountered and based board.
cal monitoring. This is a global if it is in the detection area and if the
cost-optimized solution. force applied increases higher than The hardware used for the imple-
the limit. mentation of the algorithm is shown
in figure 2. It implements a standard
Anti-pinch Algorithm This document describes an anti- ATmega88 as well as an analog
Specification pinch algorithm developed to work chain to measure the motor current.
with motor current measurements It has two hall-effects sensors. The
The pinch detection algorithm should and hall-effect speed indications. With motor direction is controlled by one
first respect the requirements of the minor modifications, the algorithm two-pole relay, while the ON-OFF of
standards (FMVSS118 & 74/60/EEC): can be adapted to other systems like the motor is activated by a MOSFET.
• Detection area from 4 to 200 mm sliding doors or roof panels.
 www.atmel.com 57

In-system Hall Sensor X2

Programming Flash

In-system programming allows pro-

gramming and reprogramming of V Battery
M
any AVR microcontroller positioned
inside the end system. Using a sim- INT

ple three-wire SPI interface, the in-

system programmer communicates Out
serially with the AVR microcontroller,
reprogramming all non-volatile mem-
ories on the chip.
AVR
Out

In-system programming eliminates

the physical removal of chips from +
the system. This will save time, and ADC Shunt
money, both during development -
in the lab and when updating the
software or parameters in the field. Figure 2 ATmega88 Controlling the Window Lift with Anti-pinch Feature
Inventory management can also
be simplified by using a standard This function loads window lift param- nected to an interrupt pin) by count-
AVR flash microcontroller for several eters from EEPROM or from default ing successive direction changes. It
applications or customized versions values, to initialize the window lift. is used to force the window to stop
by uploading the code into the flash These values include window dimen- after a defined step.
memory at the last production sions, sensor values, pinch thresh- signed char get_window_
old, pinch area, last known position, state (void)
etc. If a default is found on position, This returns the state of the window-
Software Description it is able to ask for a go down com- lift state machine (value used in the
mand to initialize the window-lift at window_ctrl function).
All code is implemented in C language bottom-end limit. signed char force_window_
using IAR® EWAVR 4.1. Implementa- void save_window_ state (signed char temp)
tion of basic functions (position man- parameters(void) This sets up window-lift state: useful
agement, initializations, current mea- This function saves window lift to force operations (stop request…).
surements, window operations, and parameters to EEPROM. unsigned char mean
anti-pinch monitoring) requires 2 KB U8 window_ctrl (signed (unsigned char)
of flash memory. Adding extended char *up_cmde, signed This function computes a mean on
functions like calibration, blocking char *down_cmde ,U8 no_ the 8 last samples. Used for filtering
points detection, and save, increases anti_pinch) the motor current.
code size up to 4 KB. This contains the window-lift state void push_button (signed
machine. It controls window opera- char *push)
Software code available with the tions with given event parameters. It This function monitors a push button
application note on Atmel web site is monitors the position, up and down and generates operation command
structured as follows: end limits, and the anti-pinching con- events to be transmitted to the win-
void init_window_periph- dition. It returns the state of the win- dow_ctrl function.
erals (void) dow lift (same value as the get_win-
This function initializes pin change dow_state function). More information on AVR microcon-
interrupt to be used with a hall-effect __interrupt void hall_ trollers for automotive applications
position sensor (sensitive to rising sensor_ISR (void) can be found at:
and falling edges). It also initializes This interrupt sub-routine is executed www.atmel.com/products/avr/auto
timers and the ADC used to measure on hall-sensor edges. It computes
speed and motor current. rotation direction, position, derivative
void init_window_param- speed, and motor current reference. Originally printed in the Electronic Praxis
eters (signed char *go_ It is also able to detect a default on and Seleziondi Elettronica, September
down) a hall effect sensor (which is not con- 2006.

www.atmel.com
58 Atmel Automotive Compilation, Vol. 4

Safety

Superior and Safe Overtaking

with Dynamic Pass Prediction
Dr. Jan Loewenau

When it comes to GPS, many people immediately think The article was first published in the April 2007 edition of
about handheld devices from TomTom, Garmin®, or GPS World and introduces a new driving concept real-
Magellan®, which are used for personal navigation. This ized at a prototype stage with Atmel’s ANTARIS®4 GPS
article, however, describes the potential that can be chipset. The ANTARIS4 chipset is currently being used in
unlocked using GPS technology as an enabling tech- various BMW models for their in-car navigation systems.
nology for exiting new applications like the Dynamic Jörg M. Alber
Pass Prediction from BMW®, which perfectly underlines This article has been reprinted with the kind permission of Dr. Jan
BMW’s “sheer driving pleasure” ambition. Loewenau, BMW Group Research and Technology

Abstract times – even where the general con- Should ACC Active Cruise Control,
ditions for mobility are not always for example, start to accelerate the
The paper introduces a new driver perfect. car after a vehicle ahead has moved
assistance system within the BMW out of the car’s direct lane, the driver
ConnectedDrive concept. Based on Growing traffic density and its con- is able to reduce speed again imme-
the driving dynamics and naviga- sequences such as traffic congestion diately to let another motorist merge
tion data, the Dynamic Pass Predic- and longer traveling times, as well as into his own lane.
tion (DPP) indicates road sections the greater complexity of many traffic
that are not safe for overtaking. By situations, are making driver assis- Consistent application and implemen-
reducing the enormous driver work- tance systems increasingly attractive tation of these principles always pays
load before overtaking situations a and useful. These systems give the off. And as a result, driver assistance
safer and more comfortable driving is driver helpful information making it systems developed and introduced in
achieved without losing driving plea- easier to make decisions and handle series production by the BMW Group
sure. This example shows how driver difficult and complex traffic situa- are acknowledged not only as innova-
assistance systems can take advan- tions. Hence, driver assistance sys- tive, but also as attractive and mature,
tage of navigation data especially if it tems serve to ensure superiority at making a practical and, therefore,
contains curve and sign information. the wheel even under difficult condi- much appreciated contribution to
With the quality of navigation data tions, enhancing both safety in road superior motoring at all times.
available today the DPP function is traffic and sheer driving pleasure at
feasible. Taking driving parameters all times. About 43% of severe traffic accidents
into account, a situation adaptive today occur on rural roads. Typically,
recommendation provides even more The fundamental principle applica- severe accidents can be assigned
benefit for the customer. ble to all functions is that the driver to following accident sites: 33%
retains an active role and responsibil- on curved roads, 18% on sloped
ity, remaining in control of the car and roads, 20% at or close to intersec-
Introduction its functions at all times. And a further tions, 29% on other places, see [1].
point is that generally driver assis- On rural roads, overtaking counts for
More comfort, more performance, tance systems only take effect when about 10% of all severe accidents.
more safety. Precisely these are the activated by the driver. The driver Even though road traffic in Europe
demands BMW Group products naturally retains the final decision in is steadily increasing, the number of
consistently meet and fulfill at all the assessment of traffic situations. fatal accidents was reduced by 40%
 www.atmel.com 59

within the last decade. This positive

effect can be mostly attributed to
automotive active and passive safety
systems such as improved braking
systems, DSC, air-bags, improved
car structures, navigation systems as
well as traffic regulation, infrastruc-
ture design, etc. However, 40,000
casualties per year in Europe is still
too high.

The BMW ConnectedDrive concept

focuses on the intelligent integra-
tion of driver, car and environment
concerning driver assistance and Figure 1 DPP System: Orange Sections Indicate “Not Safe for Overtaking”
communication [2]. For BMW Con-
nectedDrive, driver assistance sys- In order to drive a vehicle well, the the road ahead. And it is precisely for
tems enhance safety and support driver needs accurate information this reason that BMW’s modern navi-
drivers actively without interfering: about the driving environment in gation systems support the driver
they only make recommendations. addition to well-founded training, in providing clear orientation and, in
Examples of available BMW systems experience and the ability to perform future, by offering additional informa-
include Active Cruise Control (ACC) routine functions. Ideally, the driver is tion on the course of the road and
using navigation data, Adaptive Light able to estimate a situation fully and for appropriate judgment of current
Control (ALC) and BMW Night Vision completely and then make the cor- traffic conditions.
(NiVi), see [3-5]. rect decisions. The driving environ-
ment is based on the one hand on In this context navigation systems
Vehicle navigation based on map the position, movement and type of and their associated databases are
data will play a major role in future the other vehicles on the road, and used as additional forward-looking
BMW driver assistance systems. on the other hand on the route and environment sensors, which make
The integration of precise navigation the nature of the road, on traffic regu- part of the missing information avail-
in-vehicle control systems enables lations, weather, visibility etc. able. The geometry of the road sur-
automatic adaptation of the system face and other information about the
(its states as well as its parameters) However, because of the limitations road, such as its type, curves and
depending upon the upcoming of sensors, driver assistance func- the number of lanes or restrictions,
geometry of the roadway and memo- tions at best possess only part of results in an estimation of the driv-
rized attributes/events using a GPS the information needed to describe ing environment. This gives rise to
positioning system in combination the whole situation. Consequently, opportunities for optimizing the driver
with a digital road database. For the the driver will always experience a assistance functions.
past years, the importance of accu- deficit in the expectations if the sub-
rate and up-to-date digital map infor- jectively perceived information does The outlined assistance system
mation has increased dramatically. not correspond to the full picture of Dynamic Pass Prediction (DPP) (see
The digital maps are seen as a new the driving environment. The map figure 1) offers a new function for
type of sensors for the vehicles and preview as an electronic horizon can recommending overtaking related
could contribute to detect objects act as an additional sensor that will handling strategies. The fundamental
or dangerous curves beyond the enhance the assessment of the situ- algorithms of the overtaking decision
horizon of the driver (and sensors). ation of the vehicle. taking process, the HMI develop-
Driver assistance applications rely- ment as well as results from real drive
ing on map data need to be guaran- To travel safely and in relaxed style at tests are described.
teed of a certain level of reliability and all times, it is essential for the motorist
accuracy in order to provide safe and not only to maintain superior control
efficient services. of the car, but also precisely assess

www.atmel.com
60 Atmel Automotive Compilation, Vol. 4

Map Database the curvature data is of good quality. DPP. Typically, DPP will be used on
The legal overtaking restrictions are cross-country roads where frequency
A prototype version of DPP is based not part of standard NAVTEQ digi- of crossings is not very high. In addi-
on commercial NAVTEQ ®
digital tal map attribute set. NAVTEQ col- tion, on each such crossing the EH
maps that can be found in most of lected and integrated to the data- algorithm takes the most important
today’s in-car navigation systems. base number of street attributes that road to follow. Drivers only turn to
may affect the overtaking decision side roads either when they know in
To find out of if a street segment is process. For instance, positions of advance which path they will follow
suitable for overtaking, the DPP sys- pedestrian crossings, traffic lights as (i.e., they already are aware of the
tem examines a number of standard well as street markers are inserted in crossing), or if calculated route follows
street attributes such as number the database of the test area. that way. In the later case, since cal-
of lanes, form-of-way (motorway, culated route is used as parameter in
single-carriage road, roundabout), EH algorithm, the side road will be on
speed restrictions, etc. Electronic Horizon the most-probable-path and the turn
and Most-Probable- will be taken in account by the DPP
Another important element in the Path algorithm.
realization of DPP functionality is
availability of street curvatures. While An extract of the digital map contain-
this data is not yet available in com- ing streets that can be reached by DPP Driving
mercial digital maps, NAVTEQ pre- the car in the near future is called an Dynamics
calculates the curvatures at shape Electronic Horizon (ADAS Horizon,
points using existing street geometry. Extended Driver Horizon). The path Based on road geometry and other
In general, such calculation can take on the Electronic Horizon that will attributes in digital navigation maps
place on-board. However, to achieve be followed with highest probability as well as actual driving dynamic
better results, a sophisticated spline- is called most-probable-path. Con- parameters, DPP informs the driver
interpolation algorithm is used. This struction of the Electronic Horizon about road sections that are not safe
method is calculation intensive and it and Most-Probable-Path is outside for overtaking. In the sense of the
is not practical to perform in real-time of scope of this article, but it can BMW ConnectedDrive concept, the
on the navigation computer. be said that EH is generated using driver gets knowledge about roads
probabilistic algorithms that takes ahead even when he is driving in
In the digital map database, calcu- into account the number of street unfamiliar areas. This avoids the con-
lated curvatures for street shape attributes as well as the calculated tinuously increasing willingness of the
points are stored. In addition, on route (if available). driver to take an overtaking risk. By
each crossing, one curvature value using DPP in overtaking situations,
for every pair of streets is pre-cal- DPP algorithms examines only street safe, relaxed and comfortable driving
culated and stored in the database. segments along the Most-Probable- is achieved.
Hyperbolic interpolation is used to Path. While is possible that the Elec-
emulate continuous curvature func- tronic Horizon most-probable-path Since the proposed system does not
tion over entire street length. During does not correspond with the driver’s monitor oncoming traffic, it will not
the road tests, it was found out that intentions, this situation is very rare in indicate that overtaking is safe. So
 www.atmel.com 61

SH
S1 I1 S2 I2

SL
the complete maneuver remains the
driver’s responsibility. As a matter of 2
course the driver is obliged to obey
effective traffic rules.
2 1 1 2

In order to adapt to the actual situa-

tion DPP also makes use of dynamic
vehicle information like initial velocity,
acceleration, and deceleration. The Figure 2 Geometry Parameters for the Overtaking Maneuver
given geometrical distance values
during the overtaking maneuvers • vmax : speed limit All road sections are marked as “over-
are shown in figure 2, where vehicle • aa : acceleration of the overtaking taking not recommended” except
1 denotes the vehicle that is over- vehicle those with curvature attributes below
taken and vehicle 2 the overtaking • ad : deceleration of the overtaking a limit continuously for at least the
vehicle. vehicle passing way SU. The influence of
• as well as the range of vision and velocity is shown in figure 6 – 8. Map
The parameters for the overtaking the oncoming traffic data on a rural road between Königs-
distance are given by SH describ- dorf and Bad-Tölz (South of Bavaria)
ing the whole overtaking distance, Figures 3 - 5 show speed plots for are Illustrated. The orange road sec-
S1 and S2 the safety distance to the different situations. In figure 3 the tions show sections where overtak-
vehicle in front of the overtaking vehi- overtaking vehicle accelerates to a ing is not recommended for various
cle and after the overtaking maneu- turning speed vm and subsequently velocity parameters.
vers, respectively. l1 and l2 are length decelerates to the desired speed v1.
of the vehicles. SL finally describes Applying standard motion equations As you can see, figure 6 presents an
the distance that the overtaken vehi- v = v0 + a * t electronic horizon with high speed
cle has passed during the overtaking and and figure 8 with low speed. If the
maneuvers. The sum of the whole S = v0 * t + ½ * a * t2 driver is driving with higher speed the
overtaking distance is than given by Eliminating variables vm, ta and td overtaking distance is much larger
SU = SH + SL, where SH is given by SH results in the required passing way than with low speed as you can
= S1 + S2 + l1 + l2. (Figure 3 – 5). nicely see in figure 6. Therefore, the
driver has more orange sections with
SU also depends on: Figure 4 shows the special case of higher speed where overtaking is not
• v0 : the initial speed of the overtak- acceleration to the required speed recommended. On the other hand, if
ing vehicle, which is assumed to without a deceleration phase. In fig- the driver is driving with low speed,
be equal to the speed of the over- ure 5 the maximum speed is limited there are less orange sections where
taken vehicle by vmax. Calculation of the passing overtaking is not recommended and
• v1 : the assumed velocity of the way SU is done analogously. The hence the driver has more passing
overtaking vehicle after the over- time values ta, tc, and td are calcu- ways.
taking maneuver lated dynamically.

V V V
Vm < Vmax Vm = V1 Vm > Vmax
Vm Vm Vm
Vmax
V1 V1
V0 V0 V0

ta td ta ta tc td
t t t

Figure 3 Speed Plot During the Over- Figure 4 Speed Plot During the Figure 5 Speed Plot During the Over-
taking Maneuvers (Vm < Vmax) Overtaking Maneuvers (Vm = V1) taking Maneuvers (Vm > Vmax)

www.atmel.com
62 Atmel Automotive Compilation, Vol. 4

Königsdorf Königsdorf Königsdorf

High Speed Low Speed

Bad Tölz Bad Tölz Bad Tölz

Figure 6 to 8 Orange Road Sections Indicate “Overtaking Not Recommended” for Various Velocity Parameters

Hardware and mentioned GPS receiver module the navigation display and on the
Software used in the and sends them via CAN. Figure 9 head-up display.
BMW vehicle shows a block diagram demonstrat-
ing how the GPS data and vehicle In this implementation, DPP is an
The GPS receiver module used for data are integrated into the onboard ADASRP 2006 Plug-In. Advanced
our prototype is manufactured by system with the map database and Driver Assistance System Research
U-Blox and based on the ANTARIS4 the presentation in the vehicle via Platform 2006 is Windows®-based
chipset. The U-Blox RCB-4H is an
ultra-low power GPS receiver board BMW Vehicle
featuring the ANTARIS4 position-
GPS
ing engine with SuperSense® Indoor ADASRP/NAVTEQ GPS Receiver
GPS. It is the pin-compatible suc- Module
Map Vector Map Database Access
cessor product of the RCB-LJ. The Database (PSF)
RCB-4H is equipped with a MCX/ GPS
OSX RF connector and a 20-pin con- Route Vehicle Odometer
Gyroscope
nector for power and digital I/O. The Calculation Positioning
Reverse Sig
supported Assisted GPS (A-GPS)
Vehicle CAN Bus

functionality provides fast time to first Electronic Horizon

fix even in difficult signal conditions.
Rain Sensor
Speed Profile Server Temperature
The sensor data necessary to cal- Sensor
culate the vehicle position is pro-
Dynamic
vided by a self-made acquisition Crossing Curve Speed ACC Data
Pass
Info Info Info Predictor
unit, equipped with two Atmel®
microprocessors, which combines
the data from the vehicle (signals Navigation Head-Up
Display Display
from gyroscope, speed pulses, (CID) (HuD)
reverse driving information) with the
GPS position acquired by the afore
Figure 9 HW and SW Modules Used in the BWM Vehicle
 www.atmel.com 63

framework application for hosting

various ADAS solutions (see Figure
9). The ADASRP platform is devel-
oped by NAVTEQ. Vehicle Posi-
tioning module map-matches GPS
position to the vector map database
using additional sensor data like
gyroscope and odometer. When the
vehicle position is known, the Elec-
tronic Horizon module predicts the
vehicle’s most-probable-path, up to Figure 10 Electronic Horizon Indicating Orange Road Sections in the Navigation
several kilometres ahead. Using map Display Where Overtaking is Not Recommended
data such as road geometry and legal
speed limits as well as various envi- 500m
ronmental data, Speed Profile Server
calculates the maximum speed
along the most-probable-path. The
Dynamic Pass Predictor will find out
parts of road not suitable for overtak-
ing using the most-probable-path
attributes and calculated maximum
speed as well as vehicle dynamic
data. In the calculation, data about
vehicle ahead provided by ACC sys-
tem will be taken in account as well.

HMI, Visualization Figure 11 Dynamic Pass Prediction Integrated in the Head up Display
and Results from
Real Test Drives show the matched vehicle position event signs symbolize the reason for
and the electronic horizon in the navi- the classification in the DPP engine.
Dynamic Pass Prediction is imple- gation display. Figure 10 shows the The most-probable-path (MPP) is
mented in a 5 series sedan with illustration on the head-up display. part of the electronic horizon. If mul-
navigation system and head-up tiple reasons recommend not pass-
display (HuD). Results from real test If a road segment is straight and free ing, an MPP event sign representing
drives have shown that the system of crossings but too short for over- the first reason will be shown. All the
enhances safety and actively sup- taking, it will be marked with light colours in visualization are freely con-
ports drivers without interfering. orange color. Since the overtaking figurable. It is possible, for instance,
The calculated distance is matched distance is a function of speed, it is to set the colour of ‘too short’ seg-
with map and navigation data where possible that road segments that are ments same as colour ‘do not pass’
overtaking is not recommended. The too short become white if the vehicle segments.
resulting information is shown on the changes speed.
head-up display and on the naviga- As illustrated in the HuD design (Fig-
tion display (shown in Figure 10 and Segments, which the DPP algorithm ure 12), the vehicle on the display is
Figure 11). In Figure 10 the orange finds unsuitable for overtaking, are orange if the start of an overtaking
colored bars indicate road sections marked in orange color (see fig- maneuver is not recommended; oth-
that are not safe for overtaking and ure 12). most-probable-path (MPP) erwise the vehicleis shown in white.

www.atmel.com
64 Atmel Automotive Compilation, Vol. 4

Apart from extra safety, this also

helps to avoid pointless and particu-
500m larly tense attempts at overtaking
Overtaking Bar
Not another vehicle, allowing the driver
Distance
Recommended instead to relax and prepare for
another road section where passing
DPP Bar a vehicle involves a far smaller risk.
Overtaking
Possible And again, this means extra safety
Overtaking and greater economy. In particular,
Not however, it means enhanced superi-
Recommended
MPP ority at the wheel, with drivers being
Event Sign able to use the dynamic potential of
Car
their BMWs wherever they are able
to proceed with maximum efficiency
on the road.
Figure 12 Dynamic Pass Prediction Design

Figure 12 demonstrates the function tem is able to relieve drivers of their Conclusion
on the road. The Dynamic Pass Pre- responsibility at the wheel. The driver
diction info not only enhances driving is still required to properly assess traf- Driver assistance systems heav-
comfort and ensures a superior style fic conditions and take appropriate ily rely on remote sensing for road
of motoring, but also help to optimise decisions. The system does provide traffic situation perception. The con-
active safety on the road. It is a fact very effective and helpful support in cept of advanced vehicle navigation
that one out of every ten severe traf- this process, reliably telling the driver extends the driver’s visual horizon to
fic accidents on country and over- where it is not advisable to overtake an electronic horizon with a much
land roads in Europe is attributable a slower vehicle. larger range. The ability to combine
to overtaking. In many cases this is dynamic data (such as vehicle data)
due to a lack of knowledge of local and map data (such as the roadway
conditions and the road itself lead-
ing to false assessmenta of traffic
and overtaking options. Dynamic
Pass Prediction, therefore, makes it
much easier for the driver to choose
precisely those sections of the road
where the driver can overtake at min-
imum risk. The bottom line, therefore,
is that the driver benefits from better
knowledge of local conditions and
again can relax to an even greater
extent at the wheel.

Even so, not even the most sophisti-

cated and advanced assistance sys-
Figure 13 Dynamic Pass Prediction on the Road
 www.atmel.com 65

geometry from a vehicle navigation extending driver horizon and there- aiming at supporting and promoting
system), provides the means for a fore contributing to safer, smarter, and the development and the implemen-
driver assistance system to generate cleaner road transport. For a predic- tation of a standardized interface
a “clear” picture of the current traffic tive sensor called ADAS Horizon, in- between ADAS applications and dig-
scene. vehicle digital maps are an important ital map content. The ADASIS Forum
source of information providing look- is composed of 30 members from
BMW has proven by series appli- ahead capability for ADAS applica- vehicle manufacturers, ADAS suppli-
cations, that the integration of tions and providing further informa- ers, navigation system suppliers, and
advanced vehicle navigation in driver tion for on-board sensors to enhance map providers.
assistance systems, can bring sub- environment perception. This paper
stantial benefits in terms of reliability, reports on results from the European
robustness, increased functionality, Commission project MAPS&ADAS, References
fuel efficiency, active safety and per- part of PReVENT Integrated Project,
formance. Driver assistance products dedicated to the development, test- [1] Source: Statistisches Bundesamt
using map databases as an additional ing, and validation of a standardized Wiesbaden, September 2005.
information source will most likely be interface (ADAS Interface) between [2] www.ConnectedDrive.com
introduced in phases. The Dynamic ADAS applications and ADAS map [3] Loewenau, J.P. et al (2005),
Pass Prediction is based on avail- data sources for accessing map data MAPS&ADAS: Real Time Opti-
able GPS technologies and common for vehicle position. mization of Active Cruise Control
map databases designed for driver with Map Data using a Standard-
assistance systems. Even with the MAPS&ADAS (start February 2004, ized Interface, 12th World Con-
quality of navigation data available duration 3 years) is a subproject of gress on ITS, San Francisco,
today, BMW’s DPP system can be the Integrated Project (IP) Preven- USA 2005
enhanced by dynamics, which adapt tive Safety (PReVENT), funded by [4] Brandstaeter, M. et al (2004),
to the situation providing even more the European Commission. The “Functional Optimization of Active
benefit for the customer. By using MAPS&ADAS subproject seeks to Cruise Control using Navigation
DPP in overtaking situations, safer develop and validate appropriate Data”, SAE 04AE-155, Detroit,
more comfortable and superior driv- methods for the collection and main- USA 2004.
ing is achieved. tenance of safety content to be inte- [5] Loewenau, J.P. et al (1999),
grated into safety-enhanced in-vehi- “Advanced Vehicle Navigation
To travel safely and in relaxed style at cle digital maps and related changes applied in the BMW”, The Royal
all times, it is essential for motorists of the standardized exchange for- Institute of Navigation, Notting-
not only to maintain superior con- mat (GDF) to be used in ADAS and ham, England 1999, and Ven-
trol of their cars, but also precisely Navigation Applications, as well as hovens, P.J., et al (1999), “The
assess the road ahead. It is precisely a standard interface from navigation Application of Advanced Vehicle
for this reason that BMW’s modern systems or general positioning and Navigation in BMW Driver Assis-
navigation systems support drivers map systems towards ADAS that tance Systems”, SAE1999-01-
in providing clear orientation and, in make use of map data for track pre- 0490, Detroit, USA 1999.
future, by offering additional informa- view purposes. The MAPS&ADAS
tion on the course of the road and consortium is composed of leading
for appropriate judgment of current partners: ERTICO (project coordina-
traffic conditions. tor), BMW, DaimlerChrysler, Ford®,
Volvo Tech, Blaupunkt, Navigon®,
Siemens® VDO, Navteq, Tele Atlas,
Outlook for MAPS & Lower Saxony, Transver, and Hanover
ADAS and ADASIS University. Dr. Jan Loewenau
Forum BMW Group
The ADASIS Forum acting as the Research and Technology
Digital maps have large potential to MAPS&ADAS user forum is a self- Hanauerstrasse 46
enhance or enable Advanced Driver funded industry initiative launched in D-80992 Munich
Assistance Systems (ADAS) by 2002 and coordinated by ERTICO, E-mail: [email protected]

www.atmel.com
66 Atmel Automotive Compilation, Vol. 4

Standard
Products

EEPROM Atmel’s Automotive

Serial EEPROM Products
Celebrating Over 10 Years in Automotive Grade Product
Offering and Excellence
Bryce Morgan

In 1996, Atmel® introduced its first Automotive over 75 microcontrollers. This increase
Automotive-grade Serial EEPROM Applications in electronics and sensors means the
product becoming the first Serial automotive market is experiencing
EEPROM (SEEPROM) supplier for The electronic content in passenger ever more issues relating to data han-
the automotive electronics industry. automobiles and trucks has been rap- dling and data storage.
idly increasing over the years with no
Since then, Atmel has grown to offer end in sight as systems become more The reasons for the increase in elec-
the industry’s broadest automotive intelligent and require more data stor- tronics are mainly safety-related
EEPROM product portfolio providing age. The average low-end car can resulting from recent advancements
innovative products with outstanding have 20 to 30 electronic control units, in ABS systems with traction con-
quality, service, and support. while a high-end luxury car can have trol, airbag, electronic shift, electronic

Smart Airbag
Occupa
Steer-by-Wire HVAC

Diagnostics

Automatic
Transmission Atmel
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Atmel
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Headlight Atmel
Dimming SEEPROM
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Ice Warning Tachograph Navigation

Electronic Control Unit Sunroof Infotainm

 www.atmel.com 67

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trol, multimedia platforms to include for Atmel’s SEEPROMs as all prod-
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in an increase in frequency of data 3-wire, and SPI bus protocols in den- ucts/datasheets.asp?family_id=647
updates. Atmel’s Serial EEPROM sities ranging from 1 Kbit to 256 Kbit.
products are perfectly suited for this All devices are available in 8-lead
requirement as they can be written to SOIC and TSSOP packages and are
over one million times. Memory data also available in “Green” versions.

ancy Sensors

Power Windows
Seat Position Anit-Pinch/Trap

Atmel
SEEPROM
Atmel Atmel
SEEPROM SEEPROM Parking Sensors

M
Atmel
SEEPROM

Keyless Entry
Pressure/Temperature
Sensors

ment Electric Brake

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