Project Summary

Problems to be Solved and Project Context

The automotive industry is the backbone of the European industry and one of the most important tech-nology battlefields worldwide. The race for Level 5 autonomous driving is still open. Today, the automo-tive supercomputing platform with the required computing power of 300 TOPS is not yet available in automotive grade. In particular, the solutions for in-vehicle connectivity in terms of trustable high-speed data transfer and capable thermal interfaces as well as the packaging architecture and technology for the processors themselves and for the supporting components are by far not yet reliable and safe enough to meet the requirements for products enabling fully autonomous driving. Neither can the methods and tools for designing and testing the supercomputing platforms, whose circuit boards will have up to 5,000 electronic components, meet the targets for thoroughness, time and cost yet. The global goal of e²LEAD is to improve the packaging technologies substantially to overcome exactly these limitations.

Innovative Aspects and Expected Major Technical Outcomes

e²LEAD focusses on the field of advanced packaging to enable the development of supercomputing platforms "Made in Europe" for the automotive industry. It succeeds HiPer (Penta, 17006) by addressing the next big challenges in HW development, fabrication, test and design methods and develops a joint packaging demonstrator with innovations from the following domains:

Connectivity

  • High-performance optical data link with highest rate and inherent security as alternative and re-dundant (safety) option to the electrical data link (Automotive Ethernet) developed in HiPer.
  • Development of 'CoolStar', a high thermal performance / low stress heat path architecture.
  • Digitized platform '3D master' for interactive co-design from component to system level.

Technology

  • Automotive chiplet packaging technology with low-CTE organic interposer for high-performance processors. Next to the advantages in performance, cost, reliability, safety, and sustainability, compared to single-die processors, this approach can also strengthen Europe's sovereignty.
  • Smart Power Stages (SPS) combining sensor, controller, and power chips in one system in package (SiP) to reduce board-level complexity and to provide safe, efficient and smart power management for the processors.

Reliability/Safety

  • New strategy for highly accelerated testing that captures field conditions comprehensively.
  • Modular set of validated digital twins (DT) enabling 'virtual product release through referencing.
  • Deduction of compact digital twins (CDT) for 30x faster 'design for reliability' PCB optimization.
  • Thermomechanical CDT is implemented in the electronic system in the car for data feedback to the manufacturer and PHM.

Consortium relevance

Coordinated by the global player RB, the OEM AUDI and CAR, the major component manufacturer NEX (all fabricate in EU), the leading specialists CAD: Optimization Methods, and BOS: Sintering & Casting, and with four highly qualified SMEs (BNT: Test Logic & Heat Path, ILFA: Interposer & PCB, IWO: Safety Optimization, JIA: Physical Analysis) are supported by three renowned academic partners (FHG: CDT, TUB: Chiplet Packaging, TUC: Heat Path, TUD: Testing, DT). This DE+NL consortium has all the skills and resources to complete the project with very good success and exploitation prospects for each partner and the consortium in total. All of them strive to expand leadership positions in their fields through the e²LEAD project, whose technology scope fully meets that of Xecs.