Micron Technology and Valens showcased the automotive sector’s initial 1TB remote, centralized storage solution at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Through this collaboration, Micron and Valens are enabling next-generation automotive platforms that will help fulfill the promise of autonomous, advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) as well as future in-vehicle infotainment (IVI).
Based on Micron’s recently announced automotive-compliant ball grid array (BGA) solid-state drive and Valens’ advanced automotive connectivity technology, the combined solution is capable of tunneling PCIe over long distances on a single cable supporting up to 16Gbps of data transfer over low-cost, unshielded wiring.
“As the automotive industry embraces higher levels of autonomous driving capabilities, OEMs and Tier 1s are actively adopting domain-based architectures,” said Reinhard Weigl, Micron’s senior director of Automotive Marketing at Micron. “Remote, centralized storage provides significant benefits over traditional local, distributed storage in automotive applications to enable better data protection and version control, while ensuring the highest levels of integration at a lower cost.”
The MIPI Alliance, a collaborative global standardization organization serving industries that develop mobile and mobile-influenced devices, recently selected Valens’ technology as the baseline for its long-reach, high-speed connectivity A-PHY automotive application standard.
Valens’ automotive technology provides resilient, ultra-high-speed in-vehicle connectivity to meet the needs of today’s and tomorrow’s connected cars.
Micron was the first to introduce 1TB automotive- and industrial-grade PCIe NVMe SSDs, which are designed for next-generation autonomous cars and the industrial internet of things (IIoT). Taken together, these solutions address growing data and connectivity requirements in next-generation autonomous vehicles, delivering faster, more reliable and cost-effective storage.
“Optimized in-vehicle connectivity and storage solutions are essential to guarantee high performance, safety and security as we move toward increasingly connected and autonomous vehicles,” said Daniel Adler, vice president of the automotive business unit at Valens. “Valens’ ability to transmit PCIe for up to 15m/50ft considerably simplifies the infrastructure and, along with Micron’s remote, centralized storage solution, brings substantial benefits to the sector.”
“In-vehicle architectures, along with the storage strategies that are used, need to change,” said Ian Riches, vice president of Global Automotive Practice at Strategy Analytics. “This will be necessary not only to support automated driving in future robotaxi-style vehicles, but also to offer advanced safety and driver-support features in more mainstream models. Micron’s 1TB remote, centralized storage solution and Valens’ long-reach, ultra-high-bandwidth data transmission address these market challenges, providing more flexibility and better performance, and ultimately reducing total cost.”
