Just when pundits started calling the HDD industry a mature business, an application began to create a new growth venue for the technology. In-car infotainment systems are spurring disk drive shipments for applications such as storage and playback of music, video and of digital content in vehicles. And hard drives are not the only beneficiary in the coming-of-age tale of car electronics.

The so-called 3Cs—communications, computing and consumer electronics—have long been the staple of the electronics industry growth. But after the maturing of the PC segment and the telecom crash earlier this decade, electronics manufacturers started looking for new growth venues. That was about the time when we heard of Taiwan's quest to find the fourth C—cars. In-car electronics, however, is not new by any means.

Electronics content has been steadily making inroads in vehicles for more than a decade, and the journey seems irreversible now. The past few years have been remarkable in a sense that a whole new ecosystem is shaping both for automobile OEMs and aftermarket products.

We are witnessing an unprecedented growth in car electronics with the emergence of new applications in infotainment, safety, and chassis and engine control. New legislations in many countries mandate carmakers to implement airbag safety and tire-pressure monitoring systems.

The story of car electronics started with simple infotainment in the 1960s when many vehicles used separate amplifiers and radios. In the later decades, audio products were added, and subsequently, navigation and car phones followed suit. Now, video and Internet are rewriting the infotainment story in high-end cars, mini-vans and SUVs.

Moreover, drivers' appetite for navigation is transforming the personal GPS device segment. According to some estimates, more than 100 ODMs in Korea and Taiwan are producing car navigation products for the aftermarket.

Telematics Research Group Inc. notes that electronics content makes up about 25 percent of the BOM for an automobile. And electronics content in vehicles continues to rise, with infotainment features taking hold and growing. The proliferation of electronics content in cars is further driven by applications aiming to reduce human errors as well as increasing the number of safety features such as parking-assist systems and lane-departure warning system.

Then there are safety applications such as collision-avoidance systems, blind-spot detection and alert systems, and rear-view cameras. Power train, chassis, motor control and body electronics are further driving new product definitions in the automotive electronics domain.

Semiconductor firms are also aware of the car's new identity as a digital machine, which stores algorithms in digital memories, uses networks to transfer data throughout the vehicle, has cameras and sensors, and carries more than 60 processors.

According to a Frost & Sullivan study, the market volume for automotive MCUs will expand by about 63 percent by 2010.

Despite being the most conventional electronic component for automotive apps because of their flexibility, MCUs, consume a relatively large amount of power. And they have difficulty in satisfying the extreme response-time requirements of applications such as control units for diesel engines.

The SRAM-based FPGAs, which are now available for infotainment and telematics applications, offer high densities and a host of features but are susceptible to firm errors. Thus, FPGA makers like Actel Corp. are offering flash-based configurations to provide firm-error immunity and lower power consumption for applications in power train domain.

With so much happening in the fourth C, 2008 could well be the year of car electronics.

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