Forget the Black Box: Neutron Controls’ ECU8 Prototyping Platform Insources EV Electronics

Forget the Black Box: Neutron Controls’ ECU8 Prototyping Platform Insources EV Electronics

If you remember, Jim Farley, CEO of Ford, had a lot to say about the challenges of supplier software in their electrical architecture:

“We farmed out all the modules that control the vehicles to our suppliers because we can bid them against each other, we have about 150 of these modules… and they don’t talk to each other.

Even though it says Ford on the front, I have to go to Bosch to get permission to change their software…. So even if I had the ability to write their software, it’s actually their IP and I have 150, we call it the ‘loose confederation of software providers’, 150 completely different programming languages, all the structure of the software is different. It’s millions of lines of code, and we can’t even understand it all.

… At Ford, we’ve decided in the 2nd generation product to completely insource the electrical architecture, and to do that you need to write all the software yourself, but just remember car companies haven’t written software like this, ever. We’re literally writing how the vehicle operates for the first time, ever.”

It’s clear that legacy automakers are waking up to vertical integration in order to reduce supply chain dependence. With these new trends in mind, Neutron Controls, a 20-person electronics design firm based in Ottawa, Canada, is going all in on their Rapid Engineering Development (RED) family, a collection of versatile platforms to accelerate EV electronics software development, prototyping, and product development.

They partnered with Infineon to develop the ECU8 (pronounced, “equate”), a prototyping platform for developing battery management systems in-house. We spoke with Dave Stubbs, President and CEO of Neutron Controls, about the ECU8 which promises rapid time to market and complete control for automakers shifting to insourcing.

Dave has been working with semiconductors for over 27 years, and plans on shaking up the EV electronics supply chain.

Dave: “Here’s the thing with the tier ones. There are a number of players, what they’ve been doing for the last, let’s call it 40 years, is selling a black box solution to customers. It’s a top-quality ECU of course. They are ISO 26262 and everything else… but don’t ask for a schematic, don’t ask for any source code. [Legacy automakers] have been buying this black box forever.

It’s a bold statement, but tier-1’s cause problems with their closed architecture, while the industry is focused on evolving battery and fuel cell science. Everyone’s talking about various versions of lithium something. What about hydrogen, what about sodium? All of these things… Everyone’s doing all this development work on battery packs, modules, and fuel cells, but the one thing that they can’t control, at all, is the electronics. You can do all the things you want with chemistry, but you still don’t know what’s going on inside that black box.

We have a potential customer in Europe who bought a custom-designed ECU from a very large tier-1. It came to them, it didn’t work, and now they’re stuck. They spent money, they spent time, and they’re stuck… they’re out of time. Now we’re rolling in to give them exactly what they want, and we design it with them shoulder-to-shoulder. That’s nothing they’ll ever get from the tier ones.”

The ECU8 prototyping platform allows for complete ownership, royalty/licensing-free, relieving the headache of corralling tier-1 electronics suppliers. It’s unique in that the customer owns all of the schematics and electronics files, and Neutron Controls’ capable team (with engineers from Rivian and Cummins) will help design it shoulder-to-shoulder.

It’s purpose-built with their proprietary microcontroller module featuring Infineon’s Aurix TC3xx and TC4xx, TLF35584 Hypersonic PMIC, TLE9015 isoUART Transceiver, PSoC HVPA Pack Monitoring IC, and TLE9012 Cell Monitoring & Balancing IC. ECU8 is capable of controlling and monitoring up to 1000V, over a backplane that includes ISO UART, ISO SPI, Gigabit Ethernet, and any other chosen interface.

Neutron Controls is also building out a complete software toolchain, covering everything from AUTOSAR all the way to real-time operating systems, compilers, and the MCALs (Abstraction Layers from Infineon).

 What was the motivation behind developing the ECU8 platform?

“Back in 2019, a Fortune 500 powertrain manufacturer wanted help with a BMS Battery Management System based on the Infineon AURIX, we created this two-foot cube with all the critical electronics stitched together. It looked like a cluster of evaluation boards wired together, but we made it happen. It could control 1000 volts, and they still use that today, they call it ‘the magic cube’.

We took that knowledge and turned it into a single board (the BEVOP). This demo caught quite a bit of attention due to the replication of an automotive BMS demo.

The evolution to the ECU8 moved the analog front ends to the battery pack, that’s what people expect to see on the BMS ECU demo. The board is a prototyping platform allowing full access to all the electronics. If a company wants to do ISO SPI rings for fuel cells, if they want to use CAN bus for lithium, or use Gigabit Ethernet, they’ve got access to everything.

I met the chief scientist from a European OEM at CES in January 2023, this person couldn’t believe we were offering custom designs based on the ECU8, where they would own the Supply Chain and the design Intellectual Property.

The ECU8 features Infineon’s Aurix TC4x microcontroller, can you talk more about the TC4x and the choice to partner with Infineon?:

“The TC4x is a powerful machine. I reached out to Infineon in their early production and said listen, we’re being asked about this chip. I need 50 parts to start running experiments. We were one of the first companies to use a TC4x in control of batteries. That really puts us in an advantageous position.

With the new TC4x, Infineon has added a couple of things in particular. They added a parallel processing unit for machine learning / AI, which addresses the need that companies are developing towards State-of Health, State-of-Charge solutions. There are some algorithms that detect temperature variance between the anode and cathode on each cell within a battery pack.

Along with the PPU, the feature that’s going to give the TC4x leadership for many years, is a particular engine/ core designed for cybersecurity. ISO 21434 will be mandated in Europe in June of 2024. Anyone who’s not prepared for that is going to be facing problems. We have both functional safety and cybersecurity expertise on our team.

How can ECU8 speed up time-to-market?

We’ve designed the ECU8 for automotive prototyping. The EV OEMs call their experimental vehicles the ‘mule’, they can use these modules in their mule to control batteries. This platform allows for rapid adaptation towards the customers’ custom architecture.

You mentioned you’re working on a complete software toolchain, (everything from AUTOSAR all the way to real-time operating systems, compilers, the MCALs from Infineon, and abstraction layers).

Can you talk about the flexibility of integration this will offer?:

“It is significant. Currently, we are building partnerships with key software vendors that are key to the automotive development V Model. Our automotive tool chain integration is an extension of what our team can provide to our customers. Our Hardware / Software capability provides a proving ground for difficult system creation.

Anything on the scalability of ECU8?:

“It really comes down to the backplane and battery pack architecture the customer targets. You don’t scale the ECU8s, you scale the modules and packs.”

Conclusion:

The Neutron Controls’ ECU8 Prototyping Platform marks a milestone towards insourcing EV electronics, offering automakers a pathway to reducing supply chain dependencies and accelerating their time-to-market.

Through a blend of collaborative design, versatile integration, and a future-focused approach, Neutron Controls is hoping to address these new challenges faced by many OEMs.

Special thanks to Dave Stubbs for the interview.

You can reach out to Neutron Controls here:

Submit a form.

If you would like to learn more about ECU8 or the rest of their rapid development platform here’s the link.

PS fun fact –

Neutron Controls is in the Vegas Sphere?:

“We’re inside the dome where the concert is. There’s this metal structure on the outside, the 65 million LEDs that’s the video screen you see from the street and the air., we have a radio forming a Wi-SUN IoT mesh. We have 2000 radios in there tracking the power supply performance, powering up those amazing LEDs.

That’s just a side gig, Automotive BMS is our baby.”

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