Freescale Delivers Automotive Instrumentation Cluster MCU with On ...

Freescale Delivers Automotive Instrumentation Cluster MCU with On ...

October 9, 2006 -- Freescale Semiconductor has introduced a 16-bit microcontroller (MCU) designed for the next wave in automotive instrumentation clusters. The MC9S12XHZ512 MCU is claimed to be the industry's first instrumentation cluster MCU featuring an integrated thin-film transistor (TFT) display drive.

With its on-chip TFT driver, the device enables instrumentation cluster designers to reduce the complexity of their designs and implement high-quality graphic displays on low-end automotive dashboards. TFT displays -- standard fare in laptops, cell phones and other mobile appliances -- are gaining momentum in the mainstream automotive market as the technology becomes more cost-effective. The company's latest MCU addresses the instrumentation cluster market, and TFT applications in particular, by offering optimal integration and application-specific features.

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India - the new hub of the automotive industry

India - the new hub of the automotive industry

India's car market has emerged as the fastest growing in the world. With the number of cars sold in the country projected to double by 2010, Europe's key automotive players are busy building factories in the sub-continent, where costs are low and margins high.

In the space of five years, production of passenger cars in India has gone jumped by more than 100 percent to 1.11 million vehicles sold last year.

International analysts agree that the country is in the major league of Asian automotive markets, but until now most car companies preferred China over India as the location for a manufacturing bridgehead.

India's inflexible labour laws, along with its poor airports, ports, roads and general infrastructure traditionally kept multinationals at bay.

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Baron Industries Opens New Automotive Parts Sealing Facility in ...

Baron Industries Opens New Automotive Parts Sealing Facility in ...

MADISON HEIGHTS, Mich., Oct. 10 /PRNewswire/ -- Baron Industries recently celebrated the grand opening of a new processing facility in Henderson, Ky., where it intends to expand its successful track record in automotive parts sealing with Loctite® brand vacuum impregnation technology. The company plans to service its existing customer base and secure new customers in Kentucky and the surrounding states.

"We are thrilled to begin work in Henderson, and we're hopeful that the new facility will follow the success of our Michigan location," said Pete Steixner, vice president of sales, Baron Industries. "We've received a lot of support and gratitude from the community, and look forward to making our contribution."

Baron Industries is a leader in vacuum impregnation for automotive components and other leak-free metal parts.

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Gesture recognition technology could improve automotive safety

Gesture recognition technology could improve automotive safety Not too long ago, when the instrument panel on a popular car consisted of just five or six instruments and five or six auxiliary (secondary) controls to operate the radio and heating system, the idea of making a hand gesture in a designated space to operate one of these controls would rightly have been seen as an unnecessary extravagance at best. Today, driver workload is already heavy in modern cars, with an ever-increasing number of vehicles on the road. This is compounded by a constant stream of new auxiliary devices such as navigation systems, active safety systems, nomadic devices (personal digital assistants and mobile telephones, for example), advanced telematics systems and infotainment systems. The potential for distraction can clearly be seen in the comparison between the JaguarMkV Saloon of 1948-51 (Fig.1) and the 2007 model year JaguarXJ (Fig.2).

International Automotive Components completes Mitsuboshi ...

International Automotive Components completes Mitsuboshi ... Wilbur L. Ross, chairman of International Automotive Components Group, has announced the completion of IAC's previously proposed acquisition of Mitsuboshi Belting Kaseihin Co. Ltd. from Mitsuboshi Belting, Ltd. The three MBK manufacturing facilities in Japan supply automotive interior and exterior plastic parts to every major OEM in Japan, including Toyota, Nissan, Honda, Calsonic Kansei and Mitsubishi. MBK's $170 million in sales will bring total IAC Group revenues to more than $1.5 billion in Eastern and Western Europe, Brazil, Argentina and Japan. The transaction will enable MBK to follow its OEM customers overseas for the first time. Wilbur Ross has recently become one of the foremost consolidators in the automotive supplier sector, assembling through acquisitions three groups of suppliers in allied fields together to create a new, large-scale Tier 1 force under the banner International Automotive Components LLC.

Brilliance China Automotive Holdings CFO, Zha Jianping Resigns ...

Brilliance China Automotive Holdings CFO, Zha Jianping Resigns ... (RTTNews) - Brilliance China Automotive Holdings Ltd. (CBA | charts | news | PowerRating) on Monday revealed the resignation of chief financial officer and director, Zha Jianping. The company noted that Jianping resigned on his own accord, and named executive director, Lei Xiaoyang as his replacement. The company also disclosed that the appointment would be effective October 9, 2006, the same day of the resignation. Copyright(c) 2006 RealTimeTraders.com, Inc. All Rights Reserved .

ARM's latest Cortex-R4F targets automotive apps

ARM's latest Cortex-R4F targets automotive apps

LONDON — ARM Ltd has started sampling the latest version of its Cortex-R4 processor that is targeted at reducing the cost and design-time of automotive applications.

ARM (Cambridge, England) says the R4F processor offers floating point support for faster processing of 32-bit designs, and enables designers to meet stringent error-free automotive safety standards while maintaining the flexibility of their system-on-chip (SoC) designs.

The Cortex-R4 was announced in May this year as an embedded processor range targeted at numerous applications.

Features of the R4F include support for Error-Correcting Code (ECC) memory, the extension of error detection into the interconnect and a synthesis-optional Floating-Point Unit (FPU), and the company stresses the processor is processor is fully supported by a broad range of ARM technologies including RealView development tools, ARM Artisan Physical IP and ARM PrimeCell peripheral IP.

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