Design, qualification and production of integrated sensor interface circuits for high-quality automotive applications

The product development of integrated sensor interface circuits for automotive applications requires various additional features accounting for the harsh environment in automotive applications. Unlike in a pure prototype development yield is key to achieve the required automotive quality targets of zero ppm. The paper first describes the general automotive requirements like electro-static discharge (ESD) and reverse polarity protection. Then the design flow from specification until start of production for an industrial product development is outlined. Finally, the requirements for automotive circuits qualification based upon the international standard AEC Q-100 are described. Furthermore, the automotive test requirement and additional measures such as the dynamic part average testing and statistical bin analysis are discussed to achieve at zero ppm quality. The paper includes a real product example of ZMD.