The Automobile Code

With the growth of on-board electronics in the automobile sector, from two-wheelers to tractors and heavy commercial vehicles, semi-conductor industry experts believe that in the immediate future, electronics will be the differentiator.

"Vehicle differentiation will be largely about electronics and so will the problems. In 2000, a car had 1 million lines of software code. By 2010, the estimate is that this will go to 50-100 million lines of code, when we will need to ensure zero defects in the software. As complexity increases, so will defects and this will have implications on the warranty, specially since software problems are hard to detect, making the problem more complex," warned Anup Sable, KPIT Cummins Infosystems Ltd.'s head of automotive and allied embedded and tools (Advanced Technology Solutions).

Indicating the seriousness of the issue, Mr Sable added, "If software companies have to provide mission critical software with zero defects for the automotive sector, a lot of them will go out of business."

An estimate by a German auto magazine claims that electronics in vehicles are growing at a compounded annual rate of 8.1%. This is proving to be a challenge to the semi-conductor industry, which has to provide cost competitive components.

Pointing to the convergence of consumer electronics and automotive infotainment systems, Wind River India's head of engineering, Praful Joshi said the shorter development cycles of the consumer electronics industry would affect the latter. Wind River is a device software optimisation company, whose solutions enable companies to develop, run and manage device software reliably.

"We are focusing on the new area of in-vehicle devices, which is greatly influenced by consumer electronics. For the future, cars will be fully connected, with an open standard based operating system. That is when convergence with the automotive world will happen," Mr Joshi said. He was speaking at a seminar on India's role in automotive electronics.

Globally, Wind River will launch its Moblin.org solution, for which it is collaborating with Intel. The aim is to acclerate mobile internet devices, and Moblin is an extensible Linux-based platform for these devices.

Another driver for the increase in on-board electronics will be regulatory, Rashmi Urdhwareshe, deputy director, Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI), remarked. She pointed to the linkages between industry developments and the evolution of the regulatory framework for motor vehicles, from the simple requirement of a vehicle needing to be road worthy, in the 1970s, when there were few players, to 2000, when emission and safety norms have been addressed in the regulations.

Pointing out that the solutions developed in other country markets may not work in India due to cost reasons, Shubhangi Chiplonkar, deputy general manager (R&D), Bajaj Auto, said Indian OEMs need to have a commanding position in the deployment of electronics, if they are to remain competitive. She suggested Indian manufacturers should vertically integrate electronics products in a cost competitive manner.