The E3Car project will focus on electronic components that play a critical role for the power consumption in electrical vehicles, in particular on those semiconductors that control energy distribution and energy management. Since the power train is the largest energy sink in the vehicle, the research activities will have an emphasis on this part of the vehicle but the research will also take into account the battery control systems and ancillary subsystems such as converters and inverters.

The goal is to raise the amount of energy available from the battery by 35 percent which would translate into extending the driving range by this percentage, alternatively, reducing the battery size and weight by the same percentage. Or, of course, anything in between. Besides looking at the battery and the power train, the research project also will get granular on system integration as well as the in-car energy distribution network.

Participating in the project are the usual suspects of the European automotive semiconductor and vehicle industry such as Atmel, Valeo, STMicroelectronics and Siemens, among many others. From the research side, Alcatel Lucent's III-V lab as well as CEA Leti from France and Fundacion Citec from Spain are on board. Because of its broad expertise in automotive and power semiconductors, Infineon has taken the overall coordinating responsibility for the project.

Designed to last for three years, the project is funded with €44 million (about $65 million) from the European Nanoelectronics Initiative Advisory Council (ENIAC) and several national R&D organizations. All together, these entities contribute 50 percent of the budget; the remaining 50 percent are brought up by the member companies.

E3Car is the second international project dedicated to power semiconductor research led by Infineon. Recently, the SmartPM project focusing on these devices in home and health applications has been launched.

By: DocMemory
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