Scaleo Chip Introduces AMEC®, a Breakthrough Technology for Internal Combustion Engines and Electric Motors Control

SOPHIA ANTIPOLIS, France, May 14, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --

Scaleo chip, the leading fabless semiconductor company in automotive electronics for powertrain, body control and driver-information, announced today the introduction of AMEC®, a breakthrough technology for internal combustion engines and electric motors control. AMEC® will be first available in OLEA, Scaleo chip's new family of microcontrollers optimized for powertrain systems.

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The global environment concern for pollutant emission and energy consumption reduction leads carmakers to develop a wide variety of new powertrain systems, from downsized thermal engine, via hybrid system to full electric motorization. These solutions come along with the increase of electric driven functions, controlling complex engine system together with functional safety constraints inherited from both the Euro 7 regulation and the ISO 26262 standard applications. To control these new generations of powertrain systems, an Electronic Control Unit should rely on a microcontroller enabled to manage of a wide variety of engines, while offering reliability, enhanced computation capability and fast response time. Scaleo chip's answer to this challenge is AMEC® - Advanced Motor Events Control, a flexible microcontroller's interface for engine control.

AMEC® is an advanced real-time and parallel signal processing unit directly controlling and interfacing actuators and sensors. Its core technology relies on the unique combination of a Flexible Logic Unit (FLU) and Powertrain-ready Peripherals set (PrP) enabling Tiers 1s and carmakers to differentiate themselves by implementing their know-how both in software and hardware. AMEC® has been designed to cover Euro 7 and CAFE powertrain applications and provides uncompromised performance and high system integration capabilities for both thermal and electric applications. With its flexible hardware-based parallel processing, AMEC®'s changes the paradigm from traditional and limited software, based on "multi-small-CPU architecture" solution offered by the competition.

AMEC® usage offers multiple benefits for ECU's makers. It has a fixed and fast response time whatever the amount and occurrence of events to process, blowing out the limit of efficiency and accuracy for the control of the engines. FLU and PrP hardware resources off-load the microcontroller CPU from time consuming signal processing, reducing furthermore the response time and releasing more resources for the application. AMEC® flexibility allows the control of a wide range of current and upcoming powertrain systems and extends the life cycle of ECUs platforms with support of yet to come sensors, actuators or signal processing algorithms. AMEC® simplifies ECU design and dramatically saves cost, banning useless external logic or component to build a complete function or match response timing. Finally, as AMEC® is hardware based, its configuration and programming is seamless, directly from industry's standard tools.

"AMEC® technology surpasses current and upcoming solutions for engine control" says Pascal Jullien, VP Advanced Technology. "By considering the design of our microcontroller at the ECU system level, we provide a solution that enables highly integrated, efficient and flexible powertrain ECU platforms."

AMEC® is available for evaluation within OLEA prototype boards for selected customers. More information on OLEA and AMEC® can be found on Scaleo chip's website.

About Scaleo chip:

Scaleo chip is a semiconductor fabless company that designs, develops and sells complete and high value solutions, combining System-on-Chip (SoC) and embedded software for the future of automotive electronics industry. Scaleo chip product offering includes standard automotive microcontrollers addressing powertrain, body control, driver information and infotainment applications. The company leverages its technology and know-how by offering additionally custom products development and manufacturing for applications requiring added quality constraints as in defense or industrial markets. Scaleo chip is headquartered in Sophia-Antipolis in the south of France. Additional information about Scaleo chip can be found at http://www.scaleochip.com.

SOURCE Scaleo chip