Electronics Engineered to Automotive Standards
Automotive electronics operate in one of the most demanding environments in the commercial electronics industry. Under-hood temperatures routinely exceed 125°C. Voltage transients on the 12 V bus can spike to 40 V or drop below 6 V during cranking. Electromagnetic interference from ignition systems, motor drives, and switching regulators is intense and pervasive. And every electronic module must survive 15 or more years of thermal cycling, vibration, humidity, and chemical exposure from fuels, oils, and road salt.
Specto Silicon designs automotive electronics that meet these demands. We work within the frameworks of AEC-Q component qualification, ISO 11452 EMC testing, and IATF 16949 quality management to deliver boards that OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers can integrate with confidence.
CAN & LIN Bus Integration
The Controller Area Network (CAN) remains the backbone of in-vehicle communication, and we design ECUs that interface seamlessly with existing CAN 2.0B and CAN-FD networks. Our designs include properly terminated CAN transceiver circuits with common-mode filtering, bus protection against ESD and short-circuit faults, and microcontroller firmware that implements the application-layer protocols your system requires — whether J1939 for heavy vehicles, UDS (ISO 14229) for diagnostics, or OEM-specific signal databases (DBC files). For body electronics and seat modules where lower bandwidth suffices, we design LIN bus slave nodes with low-cost, low-power implementations that reduce wiring harness complexity.
ADAS Sensor Boards
Advanced Driver Assistance Systems rely on a growing array of sensors, and we design the electronic interfaces that connect them to vehicle processing platforms. Our work includes radar front-end boards operating at 77 GHz, camera interface modules with GMSL or FPD-Link serialiser/deserialiser chains, ultrasonic parking sensor controllers, and LiDAR receiver electronics. Each design addresses the critical requirements of ADAS: low latency from sensor input to data output, deterministic timing for sensor fusion synchronisation, and functional safety mechanisms compliant with ISO 26262 up to ASIL-B. We implement hardware diagnostic coverage through redundant signal paths, voltage monitoring, and watchdog circuits that meet the systematic capability requirements of the standard.
ECU Design
Electronic Control Units are the computational nodes of the modern vehicle. We design custom ECUs for powertrain, chassis, body, and infotainment applications. Our ECU designs start with the right automotive-qualified microcontroller — whether an Infineon AURIX for safety-critical powertrain control, an NXP S32K for general body functions, or a Renesas R-Car for high-performance computing. We surround the processor with the necessary power supply stages (designed to handle ISO 7637 transients and load dump events), communication interfaces (CAN-FD, LIN, Ethernet 100BASE-T1), memory (eMMC, QSPI flash), and I/O conditioning circuits for analog sensors, switches, and actuator drivers. Every ECU design includes a detailed DFMEA and is laid out with automotive EMC best practices: four-layer minimum stackups with continuous ground planes, star-point grounding for mixed-signal sections, and filtered connectors.
Automotive Standards Compliance
Designing electronics for vehicles means navigating a complex web of industry standards. We design with compliance in mind from the schematic stage, not as an afterthought. Our designs address AEC-Q100/Q101/Q200 component qualification, ISO 16750 environmental testing (temperature, vibration, humidity, chemical exposure), ISO 11452 and CISPR 25 EMC requirements, ISO 26262 functional safety for ASIL-rated functions, and LV 124 / LV 148 OEM-specific electrical requirements. We prepare design documentation that supports your compliance testing campaigns and work with test laboratories to resolve issues efficiently.
EV Charging Electronics
The electric vehicle charging ecosystem requires sophisticated power electronics and communication interfaces. We design on-board charger (OBC) control boards that manage AC-DC power conversion at 3.3 kW to 22 kW levels, including power factor correction (PFC) stages and LLC resonant converter controls. For DC fast charging, we design the communication interface electronics that handle the Combined Charging System (CCS) protocol using PLC (power line communication) per ISO 15118, as well as CHAdeMO CAN-based signaling. Our EVSE (Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment) controller designs manage pilot signal generation (IEC 61851), ground fault detection, contactor control, energy metering, and user interface electronics including RFID readers and display drivers.
Vehicle Telemetry Systems
Fleet operators, motorsport teams, and connected vehicle platforms require real-time access to vehicle data. We design telemetry modules that interface with the vehicle's CAN bus to extract engine parameters, GPS receivers for position and speed, cellular modems (4G LTE-M / 5G) for data uplink, and onboard storage for data logging when connectivity is unavailable. Our telemetry board designs include secure boot and encrypted communication to prevent unauthorised access to vehicle networks — addressing the cybersecurity concerns defined in ISO/SAE 21434. For motorsport applications, we design high-frequency data loggers sampling at kilohertz rates across dozens of analog and digital channels, with compact form factors and vibration-resistant construction.
Why Automotive Electronics Demand Specialist Expertise
The automotive industry enforces some of the most rigorous quality and reliability standards in electronics. A design that functions correctly on the bench may fail spectacularly when subjected to the thermal shock, conducted transients, radiated emissions, and mechanical stress that automotive qualification testing imposes. Component selection alone requires careful navigation of AEC-Q qualified parts, which have different parametric limits and qualification test regimes than their commercial or industrial counterparts. Board layout for automotive EMC compliance requires specific techniques that differ significantly from standard best practices.
Specto Silicon has the domain expertise to get automotive designs right the first time, reducing expensive re-spins and re-testing cycles. We understand the automotive development process — from concept and DFMEA through DVP&R and PPAP — and we design electronics that integrate smoothly into your product development workflow.