Infineon launches PSoC 4 HVMS for automotive HMIs

At the same time, vehicle manufacturers are replacing mechanical buttons by touch enabled surfaces that blend into a clean cockpit or steering wheel. As a result, there are strong space limitations for the electronic circuits, and a demand for highly integrated ICs with a small form factor.

To tackle these challenges, Infineon Technologies AG introduces the PSoC 4 HVMS family of automotive microcontrollers, integrating high voltage features (12 V-regulator and LIN/CXPI-transceiver) in combination with advanced analog features (CAPSENSE, Inductive sensing), ISO26262 compliant, and ISO21434 ready.

Target applications include touch-enabled automotive HMIs (Human Machine Interfaces) with touch buttons, sliders, and touchpads for controlling HVAC, interior lighting, power windows/sunroofs, or in door handles. In steering wheels, the PSoC 4 HVMS is used for touch sensing as well as safety-critical hands-off detection. The latest generation CAPSENSE module also supports proximity detection for occupant detection or foot kick control. In addition to HMI applications, the PSoC 4 HVMS is also used in generic sensing applications (such as liquid level sensing, Wheatstone bridge sensing, etc.) or in simple actuators such as a PTC heater or interior/exterior lighting.

The PSoC 4 HVMS family is AEC-Q100 qualified and offered in small footprint QFN packages with wettable flanks. The ICs offer scalability and pin compatibility across devices. ISO26262 ASIL-B compliance ensures safe operation at temperatures up to 125°C. The family is based on ARM Cortex-M0+ processors with up to 128KB of embedded flash and 16KB of SRAM. The microcontrollers can be powered directly from a 12V battery and include LIN and CXPI PHY.

For capacitive sensing applications, the device supports the latest 5th generation CAPSENSE technology with eight times better SNR than the previous generation, support for high parasitic capacitance up to 3,000pF and support for overlays up to 18mm. Additional analog integration includes a 12-bit SAR ADC, up to two operational amplifiers, and low power comparators.

The microcontroller family is accompanied by comprehensive software support including Automotive Peripheral Driver Library (AutoPDL), Automotive Middleware Library for CAPSENSE, and the Safety Library (SafeTlib) for Automotive PDL, accelerating the time-to-market by significantly reducing customer development time. The software package is developed in adherence to automotive software development processes, including ASPICE, MISRA2012 AMD1, and CERTC coding standards. The PSoC 4 HVMS software package is ISO26262 compliant and developed as a Safety Element out of Context (SEooC) for applications with safety targets up to ASIL-B. The ModusToolbox software development platform will be additionally available soon.

Availability

Samples of the PSoC4 HVMS controllers are available for both the 64K and 128K families. The series is expected to go into production in 2024.