Your Electronics Open Source

Smart power ICs are becoming increasing by common in automotive powertrain and body electronics. This note provides a general introduction to the subject. As is well known, electronics is slowly but progressively invading every part of the automotive environment (figure1); entering first in the car radio, it has extended progressively and is now present in all of the subsystems of an automobile. For those people who prefer a "historical" approach, the evolution of auto electronics has been divided into three main sections, each subdivided into various phases, correlated with the state of the art in general electronics at that time. Today, at the beginning of the 90’s we are in the SMART POWER phase, and it is precisely that which we intend to discuss briefly here (see fig. 2).