Robert Bielby, Senior Director of Automotive System Architecture & Segment Marketing, Micron joined Grayson Brulte on The Road To Autonomy Podcast to discuss the crucial role that memory plays in automotive.

With the automotive industry focused on electrification and statements made by Jim Farley, CEO of Ford, and Bryan Salesky, Co-Founder & CEO of Argo AI about the computer power needed for self-driving cars, Grayson asks Robert to share his thoughts on how to best optimize for energy efficiency in autonomous vehicles.

We are focused on how do we optimize power consumption. – Robert Bielby

With over 30 years of experience in automotive, Micron currently has a 40% market share for memory. As we look to the next 30 years, Micron is focused on growing that market share.

We continue to make the investments because for Micron automotive is an important market. – Robert Bielby

60% of Micron’s automotive business is centered around in-vehicle experiences. Infotainment and in-vehicle experiences are becoming the most important features for consumers.

Customers are making their purchasing decisions based upon the cockpit, and features and the functionality, and the cool displays. – Robert Bielby

When SAE Level 4 and 5 autonomy is achieved, Grayson asks Robert what experiences will look like in autonomous vehicles.

This is definitely going to be an element that is going to define the brand identity of the vehicle. A Ford is going to look a certain way, a BMW is going to look a certain way. You will make purchasing decisions on I can connect to Apple or Android. I can answer emails, I can edit word documents, excel spreadsheets. – Robert Bielby

While memory will enable great in-vehicle experiences, memory will also increase safety in the vehicle. Memory will help to enable occupant detection that can enable air conditioning to turn on if a child is left unattended in a vehicle during a hot day.

Staying on the theme of safety, Grayson and Robert discuss augmented reality and how it can be used to build trust with adaptive cruise control.

Micron has 13 customer labs around the globe where they work with customers to optimize memory performance for their automotive applications. The company also has a partnership with Nvidia where they are jointly working to enable “True AI”.

The impact that memory has on system performance can and will be profound. – Robert Bielby

Robert expands upon the conversation with a dive deep into AI and what he expects to see in the future as AI begins to be fully integrated into the vehicle experience.

The expectation is that the vehicle is a natural extension of my lifestyle. – Robert Bielby

With everything being connected and the vehicle being an extension of consumers lifestyles, Grayson and Robert discuss security. How verification will work and what role memory plays in securing the experience and paying for services such as gas using the infotainment system.

Wrapping up the conversation, Grayson and Robert discuss functional safety and the ISO 26262 safety standard.

Recorded on Tuesday, May 4, 2021

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