Showcasing embedded design innovation among engineering students in China, Freescale Semiconductor staged the finals of its third annual Freescale Cup University Smart Car Racing Contest at Northeastern University in Sheyang, China last week. This year's competition drew more than 600 teams from more than 270 Chinese universities, which is twice the number as in 2007. The final race narrowed the field to a prestigious 104 competing teams from throughout China.
The racing contest at Northeastern University was the culmination of several months of student design and assembly of smart model cars built with Freescale's S12 microcontroller (MCU) technology - the most widely adopted 16-bit MCU architecture in the automotive market. The contest required designers to integrate road sensors, design motor control systems, program corresponding software and assemble the model car within two categories - camera and optical electronics. Model cars competing in the camera group used lens imaging for navigation, while the optical-electronics group used optical communication for navigation.
Competing teams displayed and then raced their smart model cars, which are designed to operate autonomously and identify their route through each race course. Team scores were determined by how fast each race car completed the course.
Team Leopard from Northeastern University in Sheyang came in first place in the camera competition with a time of 18.388 seconds. Team Shou An No. 1 from the University of Science and Technology Wuhan was first to cross the finish line in the optical-electronics competition with a time of 24.597 seconds.
"Freescale congratulates not only the winners of the smart car competition, but all the participants who worked so hard on their ingenious designs based on S12 MCU technology," said Peter Schulmeyer, director of strategy for automotive MCUs at Freescale. "China's engineering students represent the future of the nation's automotive electronics industry. Fostering top engineering talent requires collaboration between China's institutions of higher learning and leading suppliers of automotive technology, components and systems."
Automotive manufacturing in China, the world's second largest automotive market after the United States, grew by more than 22 percent in 2007 to a record 8.8 million vehicle units, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers. By 2015, China is predicted to secure the world's No. 1 position in global car sales.
Freescale is working with several Chinese automotive manufacturers and most recently announced plans to establish a joint auto lab with China's Chery Automobile Co. Ltd., aimed at co-developing silicon, software and system-level solutions. The two companies are partnering in the development of powertrain and engine control systems based on Freescale's S12XE MCUs. Freescale is also providing its S12X MCUs to control ElectroJet's fuel injection system used in motorcycles for Dayang Motorcycle Co. of China. The injection systems are optimized electronically for reduced emissions and high fuel economy.
Freescale currently employs 4,000 people in China and maintains eight design labs with plans of further expansion.
About Freescale's S12 MCU design contests
The Freescale Cup National Smart Car University Design Competition evolved from the long-standing Freescale-sponsored S12 Microcontroller Car Competition in Korea. The China Freescale Cup was initiated by the Ministry of Education to encourage advanced engineering education reform, to provide students with hands-on opportunities to experience innovation and teamwork, and to cultivate embedded design expertise and creativity among China's top engineering students. These competitions have been extremely successful, and Freescale plans to promote the competition further throughout the Asia-Pacific region. The 2009 event will be coordinated with university professors from China, Korea, India and Malaysia.
Freescale is now shipping its popular S12 16-bit automotive MCUs at a rate of more than 100 million units a year. Freescale S12 and S12X MCU families are designed to enable scalability, hardware and software reuse, and compatibility across a broad array of automotive electronics platforms such as body, chassis and safety systems. The most widely adopted 16-bit architecture in the automotive market, the S12 family offers a broad range of performance and memory options (with on-chip flash memory scaling from 16 KB to 1 MB) and a smooth migration path to higher performance S12X devices.
Freescale: The leader in automotive semiconductors
Freescale is the world's No. 1 supplier of automotive semiconductors, with more than 30 years of experience in the automotive industry. Freescale's sensors, analog products and 8-, 16- and 32-bit MCU families provide intelligence and connectivity for advanced safety, body electronics, chassis, engine control, powertrain, driver information and telematics. Freescale is a pioneer in FlexRay™ technology and was the first supplier to integrate CAN, LIN™ and flash memory technologies on automotive MCUs.
About Freescale Semiconductor
Freescale Semiconductor is a global leader in the design and manufacture of embedded semiconductors for the automotive, consumer, industrial, networking and wireless markets. The privately held company is based in Austin, Texas, and has design, research and development, manufacturing or sales operations in more than 30 countries. Freescale is one of the world's largest semiconductor companies with 2007 sales of $5.7 billion (USD). www.freescale.com
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