Automotive and e-mobility electronics
The supply is hostile, the temperature range is wide at both ends, and everything vibrates. Automotive electronics is mostly about surviving the environment; the function is the easy part.
Evidence
What we can substantiate
Everything below is work we have actually done, described at a level that respects the client’s confidentiality. If you need detail, ask under NDA.
- Load dump and cold crank survived by design ISO 7637-2 pulse 5 delivers tens of volts for hundreds of milliseconds — an energy event, not a spike, and a TVS chosen on clamping voltage alone will fail it. Cold crank does the opposite, dropping the supply to a few volts while the electronics must keep running. Both are sized as part of the front end, not bolted on.
- CAN-FD topology that still works at the higher data rate CAN tolerates sloppy topology at 500 kbit/s and stops tolerating it at 2 Mbit/s and above. Stub lengths, termination at exactly two points, and connector discontinuities all start to matter. Marginal topology shows as occasional error frames under temperature, which is the hardest kind of fault to chase.
- Derating checked at −40 °C as carefully as at +125 °C Electrolytic ESR rises sharply in the cold, crystals drift, and MLCC capacitance moves with both temperature and DC bias. A rail that is stable in a lab is not necessarily stable on a winter morning.
- Conducted immunity considered before the layout is fixed Bulk current injection drives real current onto every harness conductor. Filtering, input protection and the software's tolerance of a disturbed signal all have to be planned — retrofitting immunity after a failed test usually means a respin.
- Harness design as engineering rather than assembly detail Strain relief, retention that survives the vibration profile, service loops, connector sealing and a defined bend radius. Most field failures in vehicle electronics are at the interconnect, not on the board.
- AEC-Q parts with the qualification actually checked AEC-Q100 and Q200 are not a marketing label — the grade matters, and a Grade 3 part in a Grade 1 location is a warranty problem waiting to happen.
Common questions
Straight answers
Are you an IATF 16949 supplier?
No. We are a design house, not a production supplier, and we do not hold IATF 16949. What we do is design hardware that survives the automotive environment and hand it to a production partner who does hold it. If your program needs a certified manufacturing chain we work inside it rather than claiming to be it — and we will tell you that on the first call rather than three weeks in.
What actually kills automotive electronics?
The supply first, then the connectors. Load dump and cold crank between them destroy more prototype hardware than temperature does, and once those are handled the next failures are mechanical — a crimp that was never strain-relieved, a connector chosen on price rather than retention, a board that resonates in its enclosure. None of that appears on a bench test, which is why the environmental spec has to shape the design rather than validate it.
Why does my CAN bus work at 500 k and fail at 2 M?
Because CAN-FD stops forgiving topology. At the lower rate a long stub or a third termination is absorbed; at 2 Mbit/s and above the reflections arrive within the bit time and corrupt sampling. Check that termination exists at exactly the two physical ends and nowhere else, that stubs are short, and that connectors are not adding an impedance discontinuity mid-bus. The symptom is usually intermittent error frames that get worse with temperature, which points at marginal timing rather than a hard fault.
Got a board to design — or one that won’t boot?
You talk to the engineer who would do the work. Reply within one business day, and we’ll sign your NDA before you go into detail.