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Fasten Your Seatbelts

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Autoliv selects Infineon automotive power semiconductors for innovative seatbelt pretension systems.
Infineon Technologies and Autoliv announced that Autoliv has selected Infineon as sole supplier of power semiconductors for its next generation seatbelt pretension systems, called Active Seatbelts. The Infineon power chip, capable of controlling an electrical motor with a relatively high current for a very short period of time, recently launched in volume quantities. Autoliv, the a automotive safety system supplier, uses an electrical motor and electronics to improve occupant safety by starting to tighten the seatbelt a few milliseconds before an imminent crash. Infineon's chip has a crucial role in controlling and powering the electrical motor. Autoliv is ramping up production of these active seatbelt systems which are currently used in premium cars.

Autoliv's active seatbelts use a small motor device containing the Infineon power chip, which enables additional safety and comfort features in cars. For instance, if a collision is anticipated, an occupant's seatbelt will be automatically tightened to remove any existing belt slack before a collision, thereby reducing the risk for rib fractures and other injuries. Autoliv's innovative seatbelt pretension system has the capability to adapt the restraint force to the severity of the crash and weight of the occupant. The seatbelt pretensioners also facilitate buckling up and improve comfort by softly tightening the seatbelt when buckling up. Finally, unlike regular pyrotechnic seatbelt pretensioners, Active Seatbelts can be tightened to minimize the G-forces when driving through curves.

“The combination of our many years of experience in innovative safety systems and Infineon's expertise in semiconductors has resulted in this new approach for active seatbelt pretension systems,” said Steve Rode, President of Autoliv Electronics. “We selected Infineon, which has been a supplier to us for many years, because of Infineon's continuous focus on high quality level automotive solutions.”

“Automotive safety electronics is a key area for Infineon. Our automotive chips support the European Union's goals to cut the number of traffic accidents in half by 2010. It is Infineon's objective to provide more intelligent automotive chips to help make cars safer, more convenient and more energy efficient,” said Claus Geisler, Senior Vice President and General Manager at the Automotive division of Infineon Technologies. “Our NovalithICs combine our core competencies in automotive power chip technologies with the latest advanced assembly technologies using chip on chip and chip by chip schemes.”

On average, a mid range car today contains about 40 to 50 small motors used to change the position of various features in the car including a driver's wheel, seats, window lifts and sun roof. In the premium car segment, there are about 70 motors per car. According to the May 2008 report of the market research company Strategy Analytics, Infineon is the world's second largest and Europe's largest provider of automotive semiconductors with a global market share of 9.4 percent of the total USD 19.3 billion automotive semiconductor market in the 2007 calendar year. Autoliv accounts for more than a third of the global seatbelt market. Last year, the company sold more than 110 million seatbelt systems. Almost half of them had regular non reversible pyrotechnic pretensioners that tighten the belt at the onset of a crash.
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