Next-generation automotive technology trends represented by “CASE” (Connected, Autonomous, Shared, Electric) are driving higher expectations for automotive semiconductors. The demand for next-generation automotive microcontrollers (MCUs) with new functionality and more powerful operation-processing capabilities has necessitated a shift to a more advanced high-performance CMOS logic process in order to increase the scale and performance-power ratio of the integrated circuits (Figure 1).
In addition, the control programs used on these next-generation MCUs are becoming larger in scale, demanding even faster instruction fetch speeds, which drives the need for larger capacity embedded flash memory with fast random-access read performance. For this reason, flash memory with high levels of performance and reliability that can be embedded alongside a more advanced high-performance CMOS logic process is a key technology in the development of next-generation automotive MCUs.