# Are the microchips in cars fundamentally different than the microchips in smartphones and game consoles? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 19, 2021, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-microchips-in-cars-fundamentally-different-than-the-microchips-in-smartphones-and-game-consoles/942407 "2021-05-19T01:54:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Chopstick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Chopstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chopstick)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2021, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-microchips-in-cars-fundamentally-different-than-the-microchips-in-smartphones-and-game-consoles/942407/81 "2021-09-23T00:28:01Z")
One trick I not mentioned yet is, uh, quality binning I think? Supplier makes a bunch of parts using its standard process, then tests, and separates parts out by how well they test. Easiest example is resistors. Build a bunch of 100 ohm nominal resistors, their exact value will vary because statistics. When you test them, resistors between 99.9 and 100.1 ohms get sold as 0.1% accuracy, 99 to 101 ohms sold as 1%, 95-105 as 5%. So the auto industry could be using the same basic part as everyone else, but they need and pay for the 0.1% level binning. Hard to scale that up if for every 0.1% part you need someone else to buy 50 of the 5% parts. For one project I got to compare a supplier’s product sample to what they sold us when we started buying in bulk. The samples were about 3 times better, but it didn’t matter since we didn’t need or use that extra quality. Different project, was for test equipment for a company in the auto supply chain. Not a car manufacturer, we sold to a car sub, or sub sub contractor. Somewhat custom equipment, teeny tiny volume, each piece had to be customized identically. For a product with lots of circuitry that would be used for decades. We only convinced the customer to upgrade sometime after “last time buy” of important chips. Three to five years can be FAST for some auto-supply chain changes. Oh yeah, some CPU chips have write-once memory sections, for bootloaders or security code. Bought a used one of those? No good, can’t reprogram. One last “case study”. Military had a preference at one time for COTS (commercial off the shelf). It kinda isn’t. Might look the same, but I’ve seen the aftermath of a few of those contracts. Extra manual sections for repair, possibly down to components on circuit board level. COTS but “ oh make it pass a few more tests”. Etc. If auto companies have any similar “almost COTS but extra requirements”, recycled parts would get downchecked there, or even new look the same but not as tested. ---
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2021, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-microchips-in-cars-fundamentally-different-than-the-microchips-in-smartphones-and-game-consoles/942407/82 "2021-09-24T03:58:49Z")
But isn’t that the point? That due to safety, the chips for the auto industry need a more or less zero percent fail rate? And part and parcel of what is ailing the auto industry with the allocations of said chips? Extra testing, near zero fail rates, less money per unit for the mercenary foundries to produce these in anything resembling a hurry, especially given the lead times and the ultimate fault of the auto manufacturers to recover their chip orders “just in time” while correctly assessing demand coming out of the pandemic? I mean, it is what it is, but don’t cry for me, Argentina, when it comes to global auto manufacturers. Ooops. Back of the line, guys. Sorry. ---
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2021, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-microchips-in-cars-fundamentally-different-than-the-microchips-in-smartphones-and-game-consoles/942407/83 "2021-09-24T04:04:12Z")
> [@TokyoBayer](#): > > > [@FoieGrasIsEvil](#): > > > > The foundries never closed down due to the pandemic because they already operate in full PPE and 500,000 square foot clean rooms. > > The foundries in Taiwan didn’t close because Taiwan has generally done remarkably well against the pandemic. It doesn’t matter if the fabrication workplace itself is sterile if the workers are becoming infected at home or in stores. The manufacturing process also depends on the logistic system which is outside of the sterile environment and again > > Taiwan had had a long streak of very low levels of domestic transmissions but then things suddenly got worse in May. They had managed to keep things out, but a case slipped in and spread rapidly. Because of the low vaccination rate, cases started popping up all over. > > Taiwan has a problem getting enough vaccines, with one factor being China interfering with the procurement. This led to questions concerning possible shortages of chips because of the lack of vaccines. China isn’t anyone’s friend. Taiwan should declare independance with the full backing of the USA upon announcement and be done with it. \*not that the US hasn’t done shitty things in the past, It has ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2021, 8:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-microchips-in-cars-fundamentally-different-than-the-microchips-in-smartphones-and-game-consoles/942407/84 "2021-09-24T08:34:58Z")
> [@Si\_Amigo](#): > > What most likely will happen is that the auto manufactures will require multiple supplier plants in different regions to supply parts closer to the assembly location That won’t happen for foundries. Foundries are very expensive. Even car companies have reduced the number of assembly locations to reduce costs (all the lines in Australia closed to move to larger plants elsewhere), and Foundries are more expensive than vehicle production lines. The whole car industry put together wouldn’t be big enough to justify the construction of one extra foundry. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2021, 8:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-microchips-in-cars-fundamentally-different-than-the-microchips-in-smartphones-and-game-consoles/942407/85 "2021-09-24T08:39:15Z")
> [@FoieGrasIsEvil](#): > > China isn’t anyone’s friend. Taiwan should declare independance with the full backing of the USA upon announcement and be done with it. That’s pretty much the message that the Tibetans got, and that the Chinese heard. Of course, that was the best part of 100 years ago, and before Vietnam and Afghanistan, but nobody thinks that the USA has changed. ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2021, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-microchips-in-cars-fundamentally-different-than-the-microchips-in-smartphones-and-game-consoles/942407/86 "2021-09-24T13:36:03Z")
> [@Grrr](#): > > Any chip that has to do with the Auto industry Gets special treatment on the manufacturing side. > > It’s the only industry that has a 0% defects policy. You mean it’s the only industry _you work with_ that has a zero-tolerance policy for defects? Because if the auto industry has such a policy, then I’d be surprised if the aviation industry doesn’t also. ---
**Author:** ![Si\_Amigo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/si_amigo/32/2877_2.png) [@Si\_Amigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Si_Amigo)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2021, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-microchips-in-cars-fundamentally-different-than-the-microchips-in-smartphones-and-game-consoles/942407/87 "2021-09-24T16:26:47Z")
Or the space industry. Hard to impossible to get a repair up there. ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2021, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-microchips-in-cars-fundamentally-different-than-the-microchips-in-smartphones-and-game-consoles/942407/88 "2021-09-24T19:51:40Z")
> [@Si\_Amigo](#): > > Or the space industry. Or the medical industry. It’s a bad day when your ventilator stops ventilating you, or the X-ray machine blasts you with 200X the safe dose. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2021, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-microchips-in-cars-fundamentally-different-than-the-microchips-in-smartphones-and-game-consoles/942407/89 "2021-09-24T19:55:18Z")
> [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > or the X-ray machine blasts you with 200X the safe dose. Ahh, the good old [Therac-25](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac-25). Though that was due to software defects, not hardware. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2021, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-microchips-in-cars-fundamentally-different-than-the-microchips-in-smartphones-and-game-consoles/942407/90 "2021-09-24T19:59:02Z")
> [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > Or the medical industry. It’s a bad day when your ventilator stops ventilating you, or the X-ray machine blasts you with 200X the safe dose. You’d think so. But some years back we were selling some EDA software, and I got a test netlist from a pacemaker manufacturer. It was a total mess, and I swore that I had better never have a heart attack. Zero defects is a nice slogan but is never going to happen. Giving up performance and area they way they do for chips built for space probes (and nuclear weapons) is one way. The best way is to build a system that can tolerate a failing chip without failing. The chips I once worked on wouldn’t kill anyone if they failed, but they could lead to our customers losing millions of dollars. An hour. Things failed, but the system saved us. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2021, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-microchips-in-cars-fundamentally-different-than-the-microchips-in-smartphones-and-game-consoles/942407/91 "2021-09-24T20:00:16Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > Ahh, the good old [Therac-25](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac-25). Though that was due to software defects, not hardware. Ah yes. We hardware people loved software people, since their stuff was much less reliable than our stuff. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2021, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-microchips-in-cars-fundamentally-different-than-the-microchips-in-smartphones-and-game-consoles/942407/92 "2021-09-24T20:02:44Z")
That’s only because the hardware guys can always say at the end “oh well, we’ll fix it in software.” ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2021, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-microchips-in-cars-fundamentally-different-than-the-microchips-in-smartphones-and-game-consoles/942407/93 "2021-09-24T20:08:35Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Giving up performance and area they way they do for chips built for space probes (and nuclear weapons) is one way. The best way is to build a system that can tolerate a failing chip without failing. AIUI, the space industry uses both approaches: the chips are more robust, rad-hardened, and also typically redundant, so that one failed chip can be overruled by two or more other healthy chips. Good video here on random bit flips induced by radiation (typically cosmic rays): [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/AaZ_RSt0KP8/maxresdefault.jpg "The Universe is Hostile to Computers") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaZ_RSt0KP8) ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2021, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-microchips-in-cars-fundamentally-different-than-the-microchips-in-smartphones-and-game-consoles/942407/94 "2021-09-24T22:07:36Z")
You don’t have to be in space. The CPU boards on our servers had a PROM loaded with among other things, the altitude of the system. When we had a problem with some memory chips, there was a correlation with fail rate and altitude. We’d also bring test chips that represented new processes to Los Alamos where you can buy time to zap them with a beam of some kind of radiation. We measured fail rates during and after the zapping. ---
**Author:** ![Francis\_Vaughan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/francis_vaughan/32/3093_2.png) [@Francis\_Vaughan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Francis_Vaughan)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2021, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-microchips-in-cars-fundamentally-different-than-the-microchips-in-smartphones-and-game-consoles/942407/95 "2021-09-24T23:04:14Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > Ahh, the good old [Therac-25](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac-25). Though that was due to software defects, not hardware. That and a naive idea that once you had software interlocks, hardware ones weren’t necessary. The hardware had no defects because it wasn’t there. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2021, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-microchips-in-cars-fundamentally-different-than-the-microchips-in-smartphones-and-game-consoles/942407/96 "2021-09-24T23:28:08Z")
The idea isn’t 100% crazy, but you had better make _extremely_ robust software if you’re going to do that. Which they clearly didn’t do. Probably the best idea is to have firmware interlocks instead–i.e., on a microcontroller. Then they can implement the required (potentially complicated) logic without exposing themselves to dumb bugs in the high-level software. As a less consequential example, my graphics board has a software fan controller, but it’s implemented on a microcontroller. Even if the host system is totally bricked, the board can’t destroy itself by overheating, since the controller keeps functioning. ---
**Author:** ![Isilder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/cc9497/32.png) [@Isilder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isilder)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2021, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-microchips-in-cars-fundamentally-different-than-the-microchips-in-smartphones-and-game-consoles/942407/97 "2021-09-28T13:53:57Z")
Have a look at the history of the Ford EEC. > **[Ford EEC | EEC-VII and beyond](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_EEC#EEC-VII_and_beyond)** > > EEC-VII Is the latest system with a PowerPC microcontroller used by Ford Motor Company, utilizing mostly the CAN bus and Ford's proprietary MS-CAN architecture. Other variations currently exist, but no additional information about them is available at this time. Ford use the Freescale (was part of Motorola) PowerPC because its a CPU with lots of serial IO support built in… oh well I guess they could get an ARM cpu running as the EEC , but they used powerpc first and stick with it ? ---
**Author:** ![Francis\_Vaughan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/francis_vaughan/32/3093_2.png) [@Francis\_Vaughan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Francis_Vaughan)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2021, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-microchips-in-cars-fundamentally-different-than-the-microchips-in-smartphones-and-game-consoles/942407/98 "2021-09-28T14:01:20Z")
You are right about Ford. I actually remember exactly when they announced that tie up. Early 90’s we were in the market for some new servers and were talking to Data General (remember them?) about machines using the Motorola 88k. Just at the time where there was some question about whether the 88k would succeed in the market, Ford announced they were going to use it for EECs. The 88k was a progenitor to the Power-PC (along with IBM’s RISC), and the tie in with Motorola flowed on. However, in general, the car companies rely on the auto electronics companies for controllers. ---
**Author:** ![Marvin\_the\_Martian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/marvin_the_martian/32/2898_2.png) [@Marvin\_the\_Martian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marvin_the_Martian)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2021, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-microchips-in-cars-fundamentally-different-than-the-microchips-in-smartphones-and-game-consoles/942407/99 "2021-09-28T16:11:22Z")
> [@Isilder](#): > > Freescale (was part of Motorola) Aside: Freescale is now part of NXP, which itself was the spinoff of Philips’ semiconductor business. > [@Francis\_Vaughan](#): > > Data General (remember them?) “The Soul of a New Machine” was essentially required reading if you were in the tech industry in the early 80s. Also, our old Calma IC layout stations ran on a DG machine - lots of wire wrap under the hood. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2021, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-microchips-in-cars-fundamentally-different-than-the-microchips-in-smartphones-and-game-consoles/942407/100 "2021-09-28T19:47:28Z")
> [@Marvin\_the\_Martian](#): > > “The Soul of a New Machine” was essentially required reading if you were in the tech industry in the early 80s. Also, our old Calma IC layout stations ran on a DG machine - lots of wire wrap under the hood. I got one of the DG microprogramming guys on a panel I ran at a microprogramming workshop on Cape Cod. A bunch of others came also. They were distinguished by being the ones looking under Coke bottlecaps for prizes. Great book. I was in grad school doing microcode research at the time, and seeing my field on the front page of the NY Times Book Review was awesome. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-microchips-in-cars-fundamentally-different-than-the-microchips-in-smartphones-and-game-consoles/942407.md?page=4)