00:00:07: Welcome to episode two of our five-part Visionary Club special series, recorded live during

00:00:14: the IAA conference at IAA

00:00:16: Mobility, twenty-twenty-five.

00:00:19: Now brought to you exclusively for our podcast listeners.

00:00:24: In this episode, Peter Schieffer, president and CEO of the Automotive Division at Infineon Technologies and Barbara Busse, foreset expert and speaker at Future Plus UK in Bihar are exploring how advanced chip technologies are driving innovation, improving efficiency, and enabling a more sustainable and intelligent transportation ecosystem.

00:00:47: Sit back and enjoy.

00:00:48: Hi everybody.

00:00:50: You're here today to hear a little bit about semiconductors.

00:00:55: I'm introducing Infineon Technology as one of Europe's leading semiconductor manufacturers.

00:01:03: and also Peter Schiefer.

00:01:05: He's the president of Infineon and CEO of Infineon Technology Automotive Division.

00:01:14: He's been in the industry for more than ten years, and he's one of the leading minds in the area of automotive semiconductors.

00:01:24: He's an expert for electric vehicles, automotive solutions, autonomous driving, and also AI inside the car.

00:01:36: And under his leadership, Infinion Technologies is the leading global number one in the production of semiconductors for the automotive industry.

00:01:47: Please welcome Peter Schieffer.

00:02:01: Thank you for a nice introduction, very kind.

00:02:09: So we have almost half an hour to discuss a little bit about the future.

00:02:13: of semiconductors and their role in the automotive sector.

00:02:17: So I want to start off with asking you as an expert, how will mobility change by twenty thirty five in your perspective?

00:02:27: Yeah, obviously looking ten years out is a big challenge, but I think it's very much important that we need more sustainable mobility and also we need more digital mobility.

00:02:41: So if you talk about cars, when you talk about mobilities, you can imagine that a car becomes fully electric.

00:02:49: You will see more and more driving functions getting automated up to a fully automated car.

00:02:57: But I don't want to... limit the term of mobility to cars only.

00:03:02: There's much more.

00:03:03: We need to understand mobility as a service.

00:03:07: that includes also that the overall data structure and infrastructure need to be in place.

00:03:13: At the end, you also want to have a holistic way to pay for mobility.

00:03:17: So payment is also key.

00:03:18: And that's not only about cars, right?

00:03:20: So mobility is a lot more than that.

00:03:23: transportation solutions, it's e-bikes, e-scooters, three-wheelers, like trains in the countryside, high-speed trains in the city, so it's like an endless ocean and it's still growing, so mobility will even grow more than today, right?

00:03:40: Yeah.

00:03:41: Absolutely.

00:03:42: And for all that, this sustainability consideration is key in also the data infrastructure.

00:03:48: At the end, you need to make sure that across all these mobility solutions, you can be connected and you can use them.

00:03:56: Yeah.

00:03:57: So in this development of the mobility in ten years, what role do semiconductors play in that?

00:04:07: Actually a big one.

00:04:07: So if you think about a car, Basically every function in a car is somehow related to electronics and with that with semiconductors.

00:04:17: If you steer your car with an electronic steering or the braking, the airbag which saves you in case of an accident, if you think about the electric drivetrain, communication, connectivity, connecting the car to the cloud.

00:04:32: So it's endless applications.

00:04:34: So basically without chips, there's no car.

00:04:37: Yeah, I can imagine.

00:04:39: But that's a big difference to an island to drive.

00:04:41: OK, so that was a whole different car situation.

00:04:46: So how would you describe the shift?

00:04:48: Like what will the car be like in

00:04:52: twenty thirty five?

00:04:54: Yeah, I think the car will be clean.

00:04:58: It will be safe and it will be smart.

00:05:01: So talking about electromobility.

00:05:06: Last year around about twenty-four percent, twenty percent of all the cars have been electrified one way or the other, can be a fully electric or hybrid car.

00:05:15: That will go up to, we see that forty-five percent by the end of the decade.

00:05:21: If you walk around here in these holes, you see a lot about software defined vehicle.

00:05:27: There's only five percent last year.

00:05:30: This will be ten times more in twenty, thirty.

00:05:34: So at the end, the car will be always online, fully connected.

00:05:38: It will be user friendly.

00:05:39: You can update the car with software over the air.

00:05:44: And I would even say we need to expect that the car will change more in the next five years than when we think back when we learned driving the car, right?

00:05:54: I can imagine.

00:05:55: And if you say it's software defined, like that's the key thing in the car, right?

00:06:01: So yeah.

00:06:02: So if I think about mobility in twenty thirty five, and I think of my today mobility in the city is a little bit sad.

00:06:11: So I imagine it to be very dynamic and intelligent.

00:06:14: So if I drive through Munich, for example, there will be no traffic jams.

00:06:19: We cannot imagine that, but it will be like that one day.

00:06:22: And the car and the environment, they are kind of thinking, and every object in the environment is thinking, and there is a flow of things, right?

00:06:31: So the environment and the car, they are communicating.

00:06:34: Do you think that's realistic?

00:06:37: Yes, I think so.

00:06:38: And for this kind of, let's say, automated traffic control systems and making sure that you really get congestion out of that, Also, electronics is key.

00:06:50: So semiconductors, you need for that.

00:06:51: You need to have sensors to detect the environment.

00:06:54: Maybe you use artificial intelligence to use all that.

00:06:59: So it will be a lot of innovation and a lot of electronics.

00:07:03: Yeah, I can imagine.

00:07:04: But then again, if I think of what was a car built like a few years ago, then today it looks completely different.

00:07:11: So this shift to the software-defined vehicle.

00:07:16: What does it mean for the manufacturer?

00:07:20: First of all, it's not any longer about the discussion about single components.

00:07:27: So it's a discussion about the overall system.

00:07:32: The term software defined vehicle already includes software.

00:07:35: Even so, us as semiconductor makers, we don't sell software, but we need to understand the software part to really understand how we can combine the different offerings.

00:07:45: And the complexity of the overall car will increase, so the dependability is there.

00:07:52: So it's all about technology, but we as drivers, we as people who buy a car, we need to trust the technology.

00:07:58: That's all very much important.

00:08:01: And this increase of complexity also means that you have much more.

00:08:07: compute tasks.

00:08:08: So safe and secure control of the car is key.

00:08:12: And that also brings me to this topic about what Infinion presented here also yesterday and what Infinion is driving this so-called risk five architecture into the car, making sure that we really come up with modular flexible concepts.

00:08:30: Yeah.

00:08:31: So risk five is a novelty.

00:08:33: Can you explain it a little bit better?

00:08:35: So what does it?

00:08:37: How does it work?

00:08:38: just briefly?

00:08:41: If you think about the engineers who design or develop a software-defined vehicle, they want to have speed.

00:08:49: They want to have flexibility.

00:08:52: They also want to have open collaboration.

00:08:56: And therefore, RISC-V helps a lot because RISC-V is an open standard.

00:09:01: It's already a very big developer network which is constantly growing.

00:09:07: which helps to optimize system, which helps to innovate system.

00:09:11: And the RISC-V base is very scalable.

00:09:14: So it really makes sense that for small computing tasks in a car up to the very complex one, you can use RISC-V.

00:09:22: And RISC-V by that will be a new core architecture, which will complement what we use.

00:09:28: So we have our own microcontroller core called Tri-Core.

00:09:31: We use ARM as a core and RISC-V comes in to complement offering.

00:09:37: So this is like way beyond commodity, like it's not a piece that people buy, it's like integrating systems and installing new platforms.

00:09:45: How does the collaboration with OEMs change?

00:09:49: Does it change or does it remain the same?

00:09:52: Yeah, very good question.

00:09:54: I think the traditional way was that the semiconductor companies work very closely with the so-called tier one, so the suppliers to the OEMs.

00:10:03: But in this software-defined vehicle, this triangle that there is discussions and dialogue with the car makers, with the OEMs, but also with the tier ones, which are the system integrators, is very much important.

00:10:16: And what I see over the last years is that car OEMs want to get more control over the decision about key semiconductor elements, and they don't.

00:10:29: I want to do that in each and every application, but if I look to the electric drivetrain, if I look to the battery management, if I look to the onboard charger, or if I look to the smart power distribution, that are typical systems where the interaction with the OEMs these days is much more intense compared to five years ago.

00:10:50: It's like a new world in a way, right?

00:10:53: How the cars build is planned, the collaboration.

00:10:56: So what are the risks and challenges in that?

00:10:58: So what do you like about it?

00:11:02: Yeah, I mean, it's what you see and you experience that here was in the different halls.

00:11:08: How fast OMs and car makers can come up with new models?

00:11:13: So the development time of a new car model did shrink a lot.

00:11:19: So maybe you can get a new car out in less than two years.

00:11:23: On the other hand side, the complexity of the car is increasing, but the time it needs to build a new semiconductor factory or the time which is needed to build a very complex semiconductor part is not shrinking at the same speed.

00:11:39: So balancing this is definitely a key challenge.

00:11:44: But what I like a lot is And I talked about this system understanding.

00:11:49: We for sure we will not build the systems, but having a very broad portfolio like Infinion has and having at least good enough system understanding to really cooperate with our customers in getting the technology we can offer very fast to the solution our customers need is key.

00:12:09: And then from a pure commercial perspective, If you take an EV car, an average EV car today, you have roundabout semiconductor content of € certain in a car.

00:12:22: If you talk about a software-defined vehicle in five years, this may go up to sixteen hundred.

00:12:27: So the market is increasing.

00:12:29: There is more semiconductors in an STV.

00:12:32: So the complexity is rising and the systems are getting very difficult to understand.

00:12:39: Do OEMs... Use your expertise like do you work together with them on the systems or do they fill their shopping carts?

00:12:48: How does this work?

00:12:49: Do they plan and then just buy?

00:12:51: Yeah,

00:12:53: I think it's a little bit of both.

00:12:54: At the end, it's a shopping cart thing, so they buy our components.

00:12:59: But many of them understood that this collaboration with the semiconductor industry, or with Infinion as one representative out of that, really helps to bridge the difference.

00:13:13: understanding from the technology we have and from the system.

00:13:16: So using us... as a development partner using us in our competence to design and optimize systems is a value on top of at the end then buying the component.

00:13:29: So in terms of like exploration and learning, can you, if you compare like traditional manufacturers with the long company industry history and new players, how do they interact differently?

00:13:45: Like, would you say that there is a difference how they work together with you?

00:13:51: Yeah, I would say my first observation is that new OMS or startup OMS are, because of the size and the size of the R&D teams, they're very often happy to take complete chip sets because this will make their R&D efforts smaller.

00:14:12: So they can focus on what they are very good in like to develop the software stack, to develop the application software, and using what we as a semiconductor company can offer.

00:14:25: I also would say, especially not limited to the startup OMS, but what we see there is that they are very fast.

00:14:36: being very fast and having.

00:14:38: bringing technology very fast on the street helps them also to learn faster.

00:14:42: So the learning cycles become much shorter and this is preparing them also then for the next generation car for the next platform.

00:14:52: So this is for me, I see that very impressive how fast this learning can happen.

00:14:58: And that's not necessarily limited to a region.

00:15:01: I see that in Europe, I see that in Korea, I see that In US, I see that everywhere.

00:15:08: But that also means evolution cycles bring a lot of new innovation.

00:15:12: That's great.

00:15:13: Do you also see cross-industry collaboration more or less?

00:15:19: Do people specify on the specific areas more or are they open for collaboration with others?

00:15:27: That's a very good question.

00:15:31: If I recall the different automotive sessions we had over the last years, this theme about collaboration and that the industry is collaborating horizontal but also vertical is a key thing, but it always was a bit difficult.

00:15:46: On the one hand side, I hope that these open standards and the ecosystem networks which we create help us as an industry to find ways and to better cooperate.

00:16:01: But to use a very concrete example about cross-industry collaboration, I mean, it was holiday season now.

00:16:11: If you said you traveled to Munich, but if you would travel very far, like go from Munich to Lisbon, that's about five countries.

00:16:19: two thousand five hundred kilometers to drive with your new electric car.

00:16:26: So you want to make sure that you can charge your car in each country with the same cable and that you can pay for your charging with your credit card.

00:16:38: So that's a very practical example for collaboration across all the different industries.

00:16:44: I'm five years in that problem now.

00:16:46: Oh, very good.

00:16:47: I know it's difficult still.

00:16:50: Does Europe or the politicians or governments give incentives to improve the collaboration and to create standards?

00:17:00: Or are they not seeing that?

00:17:02: Because it's not there yet, right?

00:17:04: But we talk about the future.

00:17:05: So you think it's realistic by thirty-five?

00:17:09: So I think in general, if we talk about political support, For me, it's always important that we need to have a few on the entire value chain and not just on a single spot.

00:17:25: And also, we have to think in overarching system, because from what we discussed earlier, you see it's very complex, it needs to play together, it needs to play across different areas.

00:17:35: So, the thinking system, encouraging system, and it's key for me.

00:17:42: With all this discussion about different countries, I would say here now as we have the AI in Munich, if I look to Germany, if I look to sustainable mobility and look into digital mobility, I don't think that Germany need to hide behind other countries.

00:18:02: There's still room for improvement, but I think we are not that bad.

00:18:06: But the press was good.

00:18:08: The press was good.

00:18:10: So I'm asking myself, what else can be done to support that?

00:18:17: So do you have something in mind that could be issued by Europe or some initiatives?

00:18:25: I mean, in your last question, you said it.

00:18:26: Now, if we have the perspective to twenty, thirty-five, so that means from a political perspective, we need to have a long-term thinking.

00:18:34: Yeah.

00:18:35: And with that, we need to make sure that the support and investments is done in the right technologies.

00:18:43: So if I would name again sustainable mobility for me is a key technology.

00:18:48: we should invest also and we should support from a political perspective.

00:18:53: Microelectronics for sure, which in Finland is representing AI.

00:18:58: But also when we talk about risk five for the next generation in terms of quantum computing, that also could be a very big thing for Germany and for Europe.

00:19:09: So the other thing is that we would need competitive environment.

00:19:18: And if I talk about competitive environment, I would include funding.

00:19:25: I would include energy costs.

00:19:29: I would include bureaucracy or reduction of bureaucracy.

00:19:35: And at the end.

00:19:35: it's all about people.

00:19:37: So we have to have the skilled people to develop all these great new technologies.

00:19:44: And this means also from a political perspective, how can we better support the university setups, the curriculums, making sure that we get fresh and new talents.

00:19:55: I think there must be a revolution soon in how we educate people with micro-certificates and shorter cycles of learning specific things.

00:20:05: But in general, I think if the EU would be more like a level playing field and collaborate more, they can win the global race, maybe.

00:20:17: Would you think that's realistic?

00:20:19: Absolutely.

00:20:21: And if you combine, as mentioned, well targeted funding with competitive business environment.

00:20:31: Then I have no doubt that Europe can be in a leading position when it comes to future mobility.

00:20:39: So as we heard earlier, I mean the semiconductors are basically everything.

00:20:45: So thinking about climate and climate goals and The semiconductors are not only in the cars, right?

00:20:52: So we have them also in energy systems.

00:20:55: We have them in smart cities.

00:20:58: We have them in all sorts of transportation elements, but also in the Windkrafträder, what is that next?

00:21:08: So that's a very important backbone of All the climate targets that we need to achieve is that we can use AI and that we can install smart systems.

00:21:21: So do you think it can be achieved without semiconductors?

00:21:26: No, I don't think so.

00:21:27: And using your example with the renewable energies and combining that again with the aspect of mobility, renewable energy must be a fundamental and integral part of mobility there's no doubt about.

00:21:41: And coming now back to your question, If I'm not mistaken, currently we have around about twelve percent renewable energy contribution in the total worldwide energy consumption.

00:21:54: So only twelve percent.

00:21:56: And if we want to achieve our long-term climate targets, we would need to increase that share by five percent every year up to twenty fifty.

00:22:07: Only then we will manage that.

00:22:10: Why would that need semiconductors?

00:22:13: If you have a windmill or if you have a solar station, the electronics which is converting the wind towards electricity or the sun energy to electricity is again semiconductor.

00:22:24: So that big contribution there.

00:22:27: So that's why... Independent visits solar, independent visits wind, renewable energy must become an integral part of mobility and we need to further expand it to meet our climate goals.

00:22:41: One thing is also that the demand of electricity is increasing still in energy in the future.

00:22:49: I had a discussion with another CEO not long ago and he was saying stability of the network.

00:22:57: is really, really important.

00:22:59: And you think that this can be achieved by a thirty-five?

00:23:04: First of all, I agree it's an issue and the more renewable, the more share of renewable energies we have gives us more concerns or complexity to manage that because you don't have everyday wind and you don't have at every time at the day sunlight.

00:23:23: One way to manage that and again this very nicely plays into the mobility aspect is if you would be able to use the battery in our car in the time where the car is not used for driving and is sitting in a parking lot or at your home or wherever is there, if we can use that battery capacity of the car as an energy storage system.

00:23:47: because then we can really balance the grid and can use that.

00:23:53: What you need to do is, you need what we call bi-directional charging.

00:23:59: It's not just that from the plug to the battery, you can transport the energy.

00:24:03: Basically, you need to have the opportunity, the energy, which is where the bed goes back to the grid.

00:24:09: And this bi-directional energy is a key thing when we talk about charging infrastructure and charging of electric cars and plug-in hybrids and that technology need to be rolled out and that will significantly contribute to this grid stability topic.

00:24:26: I mean that's also the logic of distributed networks versus centralized networks and they are very stable.

00:24:32: I think they are almost indestructible.

00:24:35: So I'm looking forward to that.

00:24:38: So we have a few minutes left and I would like to summarize a little bit what I've learned also about semiconductors today.

00:24:46: So basically they're the backbone of our sustainability activities, right?

00:24:52: So we will have a lot of AI that can help us to achieve those goals.

00:24:58: They're also the backbone for connectivity inside the car, like the electrification of the car.

00:25:05: the connection to the environment, like traffic control, smart cities, everything, transportation and logistics.

00:25:14: I'm just thinking of an area that is not really affected by semiconductors.

00:25:19: What else?

00:25:20: What would you say?

00:25:22: is for you the most important thing about semiconductor.

00:25:25: I think the most important thing is that it will not be a static thing.

00:25:28: There's so much innovation, there's so much new ideas, there's so much great tiffness there.

00:25:34: And if we continue to have people who are really excited by dealing with great technology and develop great products, we really can make sure that we shape the future of mobility together.

00:25:47: Yeah.

00:25:48: And can I add also safety?

00:25:51: Because for me, trusting machines, trusting autonomous thriving, it's like a human issue that humans do not fully trust those things.

00:26:01: But you have to, right?

00:26:03: Your life relies on the technology so that it works well and that it's reliable.

00:26:09: And I think that's my personal wish for the future, that we can trust those systems and they're smart enough to solve the problems around us and bring us some comfort and ease and smartness that we often miss in everyday life.

00:26:27: So thank you very much, Peter.

00:26:29: It was really interesting talking to you.

00:26:30: Thank you so much.

00:26:31: Thanks.

00:26:33: Thank you for listening.

00:26:34: Stay tuned for the next episode with Douglas Bolder, managing editor at Automotive News Europe, Yu Hongli, corporate EVP at Samsung Display, Jeffrey Boko, CTO at Audi, and Amy McLaughlin, president of the Advanced Materials and Transportation Product Platform at the three M, discussing strategies to

00:26:54: support

00:26:55: the ever-increasing

00:26:56: pace of mobility

00:26:57: innovation.