How many computer chips in a car?

Mickey the T

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For those non-technical folks like me, can someone tell me roughly how many computer chips there are in a modern car? My naive assumption was there was a handful, but after reading various chip comments here, I think I'm likely waaaay underestimating how reliant a car is on processing power...
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generaltso

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Fat Mach

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I think the last presentation I saw at work put the number at about 2000.
 

All Hat No Cattle

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Oh, if that were only true, our problems would be over, LOL.

I knew that was a joke, so you made me look it up.

My F150 has about 70 different modules, and each module has numerous chips in it.

And the MME?

How many microchips does a car have?
3,000 chips

One big reason automakers can't find enough chips is that semiconductor manufacturers have given priority to manufacturers of smartphones, video game consoles and other consumer electronics, which tend to be more lucrative customers. A modern car can easily have more than 3,000 chips.Apr 23, 2021
“Today’s automobiles use a huge number of computer chips, chips in the engine, chips in the seat, chips in everything, but they’re in tight supply right now,” said Dziczek. And that’s likely to create serious disruptions in global auto production for a number of months.
 


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Oh, if that were only true, our problems would be over, LOL.

I knew that was a joke, so you made me look it up
I forgot to add the smiley.

I never saw more than about 3 minutes of the movie, and I’m not a numerology fan so yeah… by process of elimination … joke. Well done.
 

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The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy[edit]
220px-Answer_to_Life.png

The Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything.
The number 42 is, in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, the "Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything," calculated by an enormous supercomputer named Deep Thought over a period of 7.5 million years. Unfortunately, no one knows what the question is. Thus, to calculate the Ultimate Question, a special computer the size of a small planet was built from organic components and named "Earth". The Ultimate Question "What do you get when you multiply six by nine"[26] was found by Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect in the second book of the series, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. This appeared first in the radio play and later in the novelization of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The fact that Adams named the episodes of the radio play "fits", the same archaic title for a chapter or section used by Lewis Carroll in The Hunting of the Snark, suggests that Adams was influenced by Carroll's fascination with and frequent use of the number. The fourth book in the series, the novel So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish, contains 42 chapters. According to the novel Mostly Harmless, 42 is the street address of Stavromula Beta. In 1994 Adams created the 42 Puzzle, a game based on the number 42.
 

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For those non-technical folks like me, can someone tell me roughly how many computer chips there are in a modern car? My naive assumption was there was a handful, but after reading various chip comments here, I think I'm likely waaaay underestimating how reliant a car is on processing power...
depends. do Doritos count?

 

Fat Mach

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No, it's close to 3000 chips. Well, I remember the last presentation saying 2000. I work at Lam Research and we make the machines that make the chips. The business unit I'm in makes the Etch and Deposition tools to make MEMS or micro-electro-mechanical systems chips. The MEMS chips are the ones that are solid state gyroscopes, pressure sensors, accelerometers, etc. Every thing like a simple TPMS tire pressure sensor has the pressure sensor chip, the logic chip, and the transmitter chip at least. The chips are not leading edge technologies, so they're a little big compared to a modern leading node chip. And they're for sure not "system on a chip" type architectures.
 

All Hat No Cattle

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If you research microchips, you get varied definitions of what a microchip is, and what they look like.

For instance, this pic shows a microchip that is injected into your pet for identification purposes.

Ford Mustang Mach-E How many computer chips in a car? chip.JPG


Then, unload your credit cards and see the microchip sitting on your card.

When you wave your card at a touchless scanner, (Costco), your card identifies you and your account.

Chip cards have a little silver or gold microchip embedded on the front of a debit or credit card.
So that Google entry of 12 was some kind of typo.

Microchips are everywhere. In 2019, more than 634 billion chips were manufactured around the world,
And then there is this. Can you see what they left out, that the MME has?

Ford Mustang Mach-E How many computer chips in a car? chip1.JPG
 
 




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