New MCUs from STMicroelectronics Drive EV Progress, Powering Software-Defined Electric Vehicles

     STMicroelectronics, the world's leading semiconductor company serving multiple electronic applications, has launched a new automotive-grade microcontroller (MCU). The new products optimize performance for EVs and the vehicle's centralized (regional/regional) electrical architecture, helping to reduce EV costs, extend range and speed up charging.

     In today's electric vehicles, opting for SiC (silicon carbide) high-efficiency power modules can maximize driving range and speed up charging. Previously, to control advanced SiC power semiconductors, electric vehicles also required a dedicated high-speed signal processor. ST's Stellar E MCUs are designed and developed for next-generation software-defined electric vehicles, integrating high-speed control loop processing circuitry on-chip. Now, only one MCU can control the entire power module, which simplifies module design, saves cost, and makes it easier to meet automotive safety standards.

     The new MCU is an extension of ST's family of Arm® core-based Stellar microcontrollers, designed from scratch with the car as the target platform during development. As a powerful centralized zone controller, this family simplifies automotive electrical architecture, enabling increased power, design flexibility and safety. Currently, the Stellar product family includes the Stellar P series for improving integration and developing vehicle controllers and the Stellar G series for developing body control applications. The Stellar product family architecture integrates multiple Arm Cortex processor cores that provide high processing performance and the opportunity to configure lockstep redundancy and support real-time hardware virtualization. All Stellar products can be upgraded with secure over-the-air (OTA) updates.

     "Our Stellar MCUs enable advanced electric vehicle designs while ensuring highly energy-efficient power management," said Luca Rodeschini, vice president, Automotive and Discrete Products, STMicroelectronics, General Manager, Strategic Business Development and Automotive Processors and RF Products. , bringing software-defined flexibility to vehicle lifecycle management. With the addition of the new Stellar E-series products, the Stellar product platform can now create a new value chain for electric vehicles. Sensing the environment, controlling vehicle dynamics, improving power conversion efficiency, As well as safely managing high-current power stages, these functions can all be efficiently handled on a single chip. The secure over-the-air update software capability enables automakers to improve their control strategies to improve vehicle range, performance and energy efficiency.”