Chipmaker Infineon Technologies has joined an organisation which is developing a global network of charging stations for electric vehicles.
Infineon says an appropriate charging infrastructure is “critical” to support the rapidly growing electric vehicles market worldwide.
Infineon often boasts that it is the world’s leading semiconductor supplier for driver assistance systems and electric mobility.
The company currently claims its technology is the “key” to securing the future of all life on Earth.
Now, the company has said it supports the global standardization of charging infrastructure for hybrid and electric vehicles.
Infineon has joined the global Charging Interface Initiative eV (CharIN). CharIN’s goal is to develop, establish and promote a world standard for a charging system for all kinds of battery-powered electric vehicles. Among its founding members are major automotive manufacturers.
Peter Schiefer, president of the automotive division at Infineon, says: “Infineon has an essential role to play in making a fast, energy-efficient and standardized charger infrastructure a worldwide reality.
“We are accelerating the deployment of electric mobility with our know-how in automotive systems and safety, and our automotive semiconductor solutions based on leading-edge materials.”
Infineon provides to CharIN its vast system expertise in electric mobility as well as its automotive safety and data security knowledge. As a member, Infineon contributes to making vehicle chargers safe, efficient, and fast while also making off-board chargers highly efficient.
Strong partner for electric mobility
For a broad adoption of electric cars, a reduction of costs is crucial, particularly with regard to batteries, as well as an increase in travel range.
In addition, a smart grid and an adequate charging stations infrastructure with standardized connectors and communication interfaces are essential.
The semiconductor solutions from Infineon foster the technological breakthrough in areas such as battery cost and travel range, charging infrastructure and smart grid with all its facets.
Within the energy sphere, Infineon’s solutions play a central role in three respects: in generating energy from the wind and sun, in transmitting energy, and in feeding energy into batteries and feeding energy from the electric vehicle back into the grid.
Infineon’s security know-how supports secured payment procedures at charging stations and when excess energy of parked electric vehicles is fed back into the grid to make up for peak demand of other consumers.
Charging stations could also be equipped with additional semiconductors for a two-way exchange of electric energy. These procedures would be billed through the electricity provider.
To this end security chips are needed for authentication and secured data exchange at the communication interfaces of charging station and vehicle.
