Highway to Hell: Ultra-robust electronics for self-driving trucks
In the European research project CHARM (Challenging Environments Tolerant Smart Systems), AT&S has helped to develop complex electronic systems that can withstand the harsh conditions in deep mining shafts and other extreme environments. 37 companies and research institutions joined forces for the project and delivered a proof of concept for a self-driving truck that can reliably operate in hot and dusty mine shafts, which could help reduces cost and risks to humans in mining operations.
Underground mining puts a lot of strain on people and equipment. The shafts are difficult to ventilate, there is a large amount of dust and temperatures and humidity can be very high. If your machines can survive in this environment, it can survive everywhere. This is why the EU-funded research project CHARM, which aimed to deliver ultra-robust electronics that can operate in the toughest of environments, chose mining as the playground for their proof of concept. The project started in 2020 and the participating partners have since been able to deliver a working proof of concept for a self-driving mining truck that can autonomously operate in deep mining shafts, where the temperature can hit 40 degrees Celsius and more.
Challenge accepted
AT&S was responsible for delivering an advanced packaging solution, which allows integrating the processor that provides the intelligence for the self-driving system with all the necessary support systems. “Our compact System-in-Package (SiP), which is no larger than 50 x 50 millimeters, had to accommodate a large semiconductor that could act as the brain for the truck and the support electronics that transform the power coming from the batteries to the correct specifications. The system has to be able to handle up to 100 amperes, which creates a lot of additional heat that needs to be dissipated without letting in any dust. This was challenging, but we always go for uncharted ground here at AT&S”, says Stefano Oggioni, who was in charge of project CHARM at AT&S.
The SiP that the engineers at AT&S designed combines low power consumption and enhanced thermal management. It consists of two IC substrates, a high-performance power supply module and a fan-out processor module, in a single module. The concept for embedding a large die with more than 9000 contacts required the development of novel processes and materials. “By managing to keep the power and data handling so close together, the system becomes very efficient, and electrical losses are greatly reduced. Simultaneously, our system takes up 45 percent less space, which translates to significant reductions in weight and cost as well. By embedding copper slabs into our SiP, we were also able to optimize power management, which allows a truck design with a much smaller active cooling system, which is an additional cost reduction”, says Stefano Oggioni.
Robust future
Project CHARM was concluded successfully last year and AT&S is very proud to have been a part of this exciting research endeavour. The technologies and processes that AT&S engineers developed for CHARM hold a lot of promise for other applications down the line. The know-how can easily be transferred to hardware for other harsh environments applications, for example in space, deserts or on the sea. Data centres for AI and other data-intensive applications are also high-temperature environments and will benefit hugely from hardware that can handle high temperatures consistently and with minimal losses. “Conventional wisdom is that a rise in the semiconductor’s junction working temperature of 10 degrees Celsius will halve its expected life. We will need robust systems that can handle multiple microchips in parallel to process the growing amount of data in the world. The technology that we have developed for project CHARM has huge potential”, says Stefano Oggioni.
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