Mexican engineer develops low-cost microchip for car control

Rafael del Rey Acuña, PhD graduate in Engineering Sciences from ITESO

, has developed a drive circuit board to lower the costs of production for high-end vehicle panels and incorporate them into more affordable vehicles.

Del Rey Acuña indicated that driving a car with a price of over one million pesos allows drivers to have full control of their vehicle by using the controls on the directional levers.

He added that from the dashboard one can choose the type of driving, monitor the vehicle’s performance, brake wear, tire pressure, and fuel details, as well as manage the infotainment system.

The engineer set out to develop a circuit card that offers the same quality performance as those behind high-end vehicle panels, but at a much lower cost.

During his time as a PhD student (2014-2017) , he developed the Module in Package (MiP) technology with the support of a German company and the advice of ITESO professors Zabdiel Brito and Ernesto Rayas . He has already filed a patent application at the international scale for his invention.

"I started working on reducing the cost of printed circuit boards for high-speed systems, in the German company they offered me all kinds of resources, simulators, and licenses to work with them because the subject interested them a lot."

He mentioned that he developed a microchip that has all the specific traits of complex computer systems, but with a smaller space. "In the industry this is called System in Package (SiP)," he claimed.

This new technology complies with the applicable international standards and regulations and manages to reduce the current production cost up to 70% .

"It also endures adverse thermal conditions, ranging from 40 degrees below zero to 105 degrees Celsius, and can be mass-produced. The percentage of money saved increases proportionally with the volume of production."

He shared that from the beginning of the investigation he foresaw that there were only two possibilities to lower costs in the design and production of the microchip, one of them was cutting elements and functions.

"The other was to implement mathematics to design something completely different from what we knew, thanks to simulation techniques."

He recalled that in 2017 , the international patent application was registered with the firm that financed the development of two prototypes and trips to Germany for the consultancies he received between 2014 and 2017, during the investigation.

He explained that the multinational company will monitor the project by sending it to Germany, in a two-year temporary transfer, with the aim of supervising the first stages of production.

He estimated that by 2021 "the first series of mid-range cars could be launched with this new MiP system."

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