CAN FD Light - A novel communication bus supporting digitalization and customization of automotive lighting for the broad market

With the pervasion of LEDs and nowadays emerging Organic LEDs (OLEDs) automotive lighting has developed into an eye catching design element that gives the car a unique style and offers perceivable value to end customers. Light functions require animations, personalized patterns to attract end customers but they also can serve as a way to communicate with other cars and pedestrians, to increase safety. Such lighting systems imply new system architectures and enhanced network capability as well as a fast, robust and reliable communication interface from the central gateway to the light control unit hosting both the light sources and their own drivers. For this purpose, STMicroelectronics has developed a new communication standard - the CAN FD Light (*) - which implements all those features very attractive to all those car manufacturers who want to give their cars a classy unique look at competitive cost. This paper describes the innovation of automotive lighting with CAN FD Light bus and how it helps to achieve the automotive market requirements with a lean and robust solution. (*) CAN FD Light is filed for patent.