STMicroelectronics and Audi partner on automotive lighting

Semiconductor company STMicroelectronics has announced its collaborative efforts with automobile manufacturer Audi to conceive, design, industrialise, manufacture and deliver the next generation of innovative automotive exterior OLED lighting.

The first demonstration of this effort was Audi’s presentation of next-generation digital OLED technology at the 2019 International Symposium on Automotive Lighting (ISAL). The parties aim to release the new technology in Audi’s future car models.

ST has been a member of Audi’s Progressive Semiconductor Program (PSCP) since 2012, with the long-term strategic relationship initially focusing on reduction of CO₂ emissions, safety and security, and infotainment and comfort. The current cooperation expands the relationship and builds on Audi’s creativity and success in automotive lighting solutions and ST’s broad expertise in automotive semiconductors, and specifically controllers and drivers for automotive lighting applications.

The next-generation lighting design will enable more customised and animated lighting patterns, by controlling and diagnosing hundreds of individual OLEDs. In addition to flexibility to offer special design styling to Audi cars, the animated patterns are designed to provide additional value in safety to customers.

In the recent ISAL demonstration, ST contributed a complete plug-and-play system to control and continuously adjust the brightness of the numerous individually energised OLED pixels by means of an innovative high-speed automotive communication layer, specifically adapted by ST for lighting architecture and embedded in the actuator IC.

“With Audi’s long history of innovation and success in the premium automotive market, it was important to work with a semiconductor company who could bring their expertise in converting our ideas into robust, reliable chips that would meet our customers’ demanding expectations,” said Dr Klaus Büttner, Executive Vice President Electrics/Electronics, CarIT of the Audi AG.

“Having worked closely with Audi for many years, ST has had the opportunity to lend our expertise, customer focus and manufacturing reliability to many products in their outstanding vehicles; we know the quality and creativity they demand and appreciate Audi’s continued confidence and the recognition of our contributions that this new cooperation represents,” said Marco Monti, President, Automotive and Discrete Group, STMicroelectronics.

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