Infineon Lenovo Autonomous Driving Partnership

Infineon Technologies and Lenovo have announced an enhanced collaboration focused on in-vehicle compute as car manufacturers continue to consolidate functions into centralized architectures for autonomous driving. Lenovo’s automotive controllers will now utilize Infineon’s automotive microcontrollers to enhance safety-oriented vehicle compute capabilities.

For readers of eeNews Europe, this partnership is significant as domain-controller design decisions are increasingly influencing ECU consolidation, functional safety partitions, and in-vehicle networking choices, which in turn impact silicon selection and validation processes. It serves as a tangible example of how Tier suppliers and chip vendors are aligning platforms to support software-defined vehicle roadmaps.

Objectives of the Collaboration

In their recent announcement, Infineon revealed that Lenovo’s AD1 and AH1 autonomous driving domain controller units will leverage Infineon’s AURIX family of microcontrollers to enable advanced driver assistance systems, energy efficiency, and high-speed data exchange within in-vehicle networks. The companies view this collaboration as a step towards developing high-performance automotive computing platforms capable of integrating AI into software-defined vehicles.

They specifically outline that the collaboration targets assisted and automated driving stacks, with a focus on supporting autonomy levels ranging from L2 (partial automation) to L4 (high automation). This distinction is crucial for engineering teams as the safety requirements, redundancy strategies, and data-path considerations differ significantly between L2-centric ADAS consolidation and more advanced L3 and L4 designs.

Emphasis on Safety Compute and Ecosystem Integration

Infineon places a strong emphasis on safety and security in centralized compute solutions. Thomas Böhm, Senior Vice President and Head of the Automotive Microcontroller Business Line at Infineon, highlighted the role of the AURIX product family in enabling secure computing for software-defined vehicles. He emphasized the partnership with Lenovo as a means to combine robust computing with scalable software architectures, empowering OEMs to accelerate their SDV strategies.

Lenovo’s Tang Xinyue, Vice President of Lenovo Group and Head of Lenovo Vehicle Computing, emphasized the integration of AI into real driving scenarios through the collaboration with Infineon. He stated that Infineon’s semiconductor solutions provide a reliable foundation for their computing platforms, aiming to create more dependable experiences for customers by deepening the integration of AI in driving environments.

Infineon further noted that the joint solution is designed to expedite the transition to autonomous driving architectures by offering faster development cycles, increased flexibility, and enhanced dependability. The collaboration also aims to expand partnerships across integration, software, tools, and services to support the evolution of intelligent mobility.