The proliferation of in-vehicle applications and electronics is driving the need for more advanced interconnects between modules, with the requirement to support dense signaling raising the bar for creating pluggable connectors with higher pin counts than in the past.
This article provides an overview of the trends in on-board applications and electronic control units (ECUs), along with an exploration of new connector design and manufacturing advances that address today’s and tomorrow’s requirements.
Trends in ECUs and On-Board Automotive Applications
Electronic Control Units (ECUs) play a crucial role in automotive electronics by controlling various functions and subsystems within a vehicle. ECUs are specialized computers that monitor, manage, and regulate a wide range of components and systems, such as engine management, transmission control, braking, steering, suspension, and more.
They receive input from sensors located throughout the vehicle and use this information to make real-time decisions and adjustments to optimize performance, efficiency, safety, and comfort.
Factors that are pressing requirements for more higher signal density include:
- Integration and consolidation: Automakers are increasingly integrating multiple functions into a single ECU to reduce complexity, weight, and cost. This trend involves consolidating functionalities such as engine control, transmission control, and chassis control into fewer, more powerful ECUs.
- Connectivity: With the rise of connected vehicles, ECUs are incorporating more communication capabilities to enable vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communication. This allows for advanced features such as remote diagnostics, over-the-air updates, and telematics services.
- Functional safety: As vehicles become more reliant on electronic systems, ensuring their safety and reliability is paramount. ECUs are incorporating advanced safety features and adhering to industry standards such as ISO 26262 to mitigate risks associated with system failures or malfunctions.
- Software-defined architecture: The automotive industry is shifting towards software-defined architectures, where ECUs are becoming more adaptable and flexible by using software updates and reconfigurable hardware. This enables faster innovation, customization, and scalability over the vehicle’s lifecycle.
- Increased processing power: To support growing computational demands, ECUs are adopting more powerful processors, such as multicore CPUs and GPUs, to handle complex algorithms and data-intensive tasks like artificial intelligence, machine learning, and computer vision.
New Solderless, High Pin Count Connector Designs
As a longtime leader in both Press-Fit interconnects and molded connector assemblies, ENNOVI has taken the next step in dense signal connectivity by combining these technologies to create the industry’s most advanced automotive-compliant, high pin count, pluggable connectors using solderless Press-Fit pins.
These new integrated connectors reduce manufacturing cost and improve reliability by eliminating soldering and curing times, while also preventing the risk for de-positioning of the pins during final over-molding processes.
The ENNOVI engineering team developed an efficient, patent-pending manufacturing technique for stitching Press-Fit terminals directly into the housings, which both increases manufacturing throughput and secures positioning of the pins to prevent movement. This direct stitch method provides a significant improvement over the previous reel-to-reel molding process.
By eliminating soldering, our High-Pin-Count solutions eliminate differences in the amount of solder paste applied, which can lead to capacitance variations. Solderless assembly also saves time for customers during subsequent final production processes.
This new solderless architectural approach can also accommodate a wide range of design and configuration options for integrating standards-based automotive interfaces into specialized applications such as sensors, radars, control units, zonal controllers, power train controllers, and more. The process has also been adapted for our new automotive ethernet connector, ENNOVI-Net.
With decades of proven performance in the automotive sector, ENNOVI Press-Fit interconnects have been extensively tested for operation in -40 to +105°C environments and can deliver at least 25 mating cycles.
Key capabilities and benefits of the technology include:
- The integrated solution mitigates shock and vibration.
- Press-Fit delivers high operational temperature performance.
- Standardized interfaces compatible with automotive performance requirements.
- Options for straight or right-angle Press-Fit configurations.
Summary
As the evolution of on-board, automotive applications moves toward interconnection of a variety of different zonal electronic systems and subsystems, the ability to combine robust automotive standards with customizable high-density connector designs will be a key to success.
By leveraging proven Press-Fit solderless interconnects and highly efficient pin stitching into molded housings, the ENNOVI approach is bringing together lower costs, high-volume production, robust performance, and optimized design customization to enable the next generation of advanced automotive electronics.