2021 BRN Discussion, page-27104

Interesting and relevant interview with the Automotive VP at Micron. He is talking about how the future of automotives will require personalised experiences. These experiences must work regardless of cloud connection and must have low latency.
The mention of personalised experiences and voice recognition reminded me of the video Rob Telson played at the Auto Edge Summit, where someone was inside a car and the car was recognising the person by image and voice. I've attached the relevant video which was kindly shared by Stan9614. You can see this demonstration from 9:00 onwards.


Pure speculation, DYOR

https://www.forbes.com/sites/micron-technology/2021/09/29/the-next-chapter-of-automotive-innovation-qa-with-giorgio-scuro-vice-president-automotive-division-micron-technology/?sh=296be1445e2a

Sep 29, 2021,01:24pm EDT

The following comments from Giorgio Scuro, head of the automotive division at the memory and data storage company Micron Technology, have been lightly edited and condensed for length and clarity.

How are consumer expectations driving automotive innovations?

We’re seeing cars become more sophisticated through the integration of advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS)—such as adaptive cruise control, automatic emergency braking, lane-keeping or lane-changing assist, limited hands-free driving and driver-monitoring systems—as well as through cellular vehicle-to-anything (C-V2X) communication. While we look forward to a time when cars will be fully autonomous, ADAS technologies that are available today are already improving driving experiences and passenger safety.

Further, our expectations for the driving experience have changed. When we get into our cars today, we want information at our fingertips immediately, and this desire brings new requirements for the information, entertainment and connectivity delivered by our advanced in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) systems. In fact, these features are becoming as important as how a car drives to some buyers’ purchasing decisions.

Additionally, automotive systems are expected to meet functional safety (FuSa) standards that minimize the risk of failures in electrical and electronic systems that could compromise safety.

What do customers want in in-vehicle infotainment experiences?

The in-car experience is rapidly changing. We increasingly expect features like larger and more numerous high-resolution displays, sophisticated navigation capabilities, 5G network connectivity, voice recognition and passenger personalization. And we expect these in-cabin technologies to deliver a seamless, responsive experience just a few seconds after we turn the key. As drivers, we have little tolerance for long wait times once we’ve turned on the ignition.

We know from our customers that these cutting-edge applications require advanced memory and storage to achieve these nonnegotiable targets. So, as part of our long history of designing unique solutions for the automotive market, Micron recently introduced the first automotive-qualified Universal Flash Storage (UFS) 3.1 memory devices in the industry. These solutions offer the ruggedness, reliability and longevity that automotive environments demand. They deliver the benefits of faster performance to auto IVI systems, bringing the user experience in line with today’s digital lifestyle expectations.

Looking to the future, as higher-level autonomous capabilities come online and the focus shifts away from the actual driving experience, we think that innovation in IVI will be even more important. Customers will increasingly value a cabin rich with information and passenger experiences based on their individual preferences for entertainment and productivity.

Which innovations are accelerating the path to full autonomy?

Two massive technology trends are giving us the opportunity to enable fully autonomous capabilities: the extension of artificial intelligence (AI) innovation into the vehicle and the arrival of ubiquitous 5G connectivity. Coupling these technologies with a data foundation of memory and storage, the industry is transforming vehicles into virtual data centers on wheels. This transformation is necessary to support the massive amount of data that cars are creating, processing and storing—up to 20 terabytes of data per day in current autonomous test vehicles—and to enable the types of vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communications that cars need to interact with each other and their environment.

We will also need in-vehicle, high-performance computing resources to realize full autonomy. When a vehicle is in motion, there's very little tolerance for any latency or lack of connectivity associated with cloud-based processing solutions. That’s why the vehicle’s own compute infrastructure must support near-real-time AI analysis of this data to sense the environment, perceive any potential threats and act accordingly.

Finally, safety is another critical aspect of what is required to realize autonomous capabilities. Achieving high levels of safety requires systems with both reliability and predictability for foundational components like memory and storage.

What additional safety measures are applied to automotive memory solutions?

Safety-designated automotive solutions must comply with specific quality, reliability and functional safety standards, including AEC Q100 and ISO 26262. The ISO 26262 standard describes functional safety as the “absence of unreasonable risk due to hazards caused by malfunctioning behavior of electrical/electronic systems.”

As we work with the industry to deliver ADAS, autonomy and enhanced IVI, we’re seeing automotive memory and storage solutions that meet ISO 26262 standards increase in importance. Micron has been the first to deliver hardware-evaluated, safety-designated memory to meet these requirements.

We also take that mindset into processes across all of Micron. We employ a zero-defect aspirational mindset and quality-management systems that support the increased functional safety requirements. We remain fully committed to serving the auto industry and to ensuring that our auto-qualified memory and storage devices provide the capabilities that the automotive market requires while also meeting functional safety standards.