Driver Assistance Systems In Cars To Face Shortage Soon

In the automotive industry, the availability of many electronic components is expected to improve in the course of 2022, above all the so-called micro-controller units (MCUs), but according to market observers, there will soon be a shortage elsewhere – with driver assistance systems.

As the Taiwanese industry service DigiTimes reports, citing sources from the local industry, the situation with the simpler control chips for use in cars and other vehicles is likely to ease in the course of 2022, but the increasingly popular driver assistance systems themselves will likely soon be affected by bottlenecks.

Chip crisis would create more problems

For car manufacturers and their customers, this means that when buying a new car, you will soon have to do without the so-called Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) more often, or you will only be able to use them with a reduced range of functions. Examples of such systems are functions such as automated parking, collision warning systems, lane assistants, cruise control systems, but also AI features, navigation, and connectivity functions.

According to the report, greater capacities at chip contract manufacturers such as TSMC and the affiliated companies in the supply chain, which for example test the chips, will ensure better availability of many chips for the automotive sector in the course of 2022. At the same time, the so-called ABF substrates for the production of high-performance chips for controlling driver assistance systems are becoming increasingly scarce.

The ABF substrate, also called Ajinomoto Build-Up Film (ABF), is an insulator developed on the basis of amino acids in the form of a microfilm, which is essential in today’s chip industry when it comes to establishing the connection between silicon and carrier boards. Because ABF substrate is no longer sufficiently available in the area of ​​so-called flip-chip backend production, car manufacturers must now expect new bottlenecks.

It is therefore expected that the chips required for high-performance driver assistance systems will no longer be able to be built in the required quantities by 2023. At the same time, the prices for the manufacture of such products are rising, which, in addition to the poor availability, will be another factor that some car manufacturers could reduce the use of ADAS in their vehicles, it is said.