austriamicrosystems (SWX: AMS), a leading global designer and manufacturer of analog integrated circuits (ICs) for automotive, communication, industrial and medical applications, has become a full member of Japan's JasPar consortium, a standards body that specializes in automotive electronic devices. This allows austriamicrosystems to participate in the development of fault-tolerant high-speed data communications in Japanese-manufactured vehicles.

The JasPar consortium (Japan Automotive Software Platform Architecture), which was initiated by leading Japanese car makers Denso, Honda, Nissan and Toyota, is responsible for defining a uniform, interchangeable high-speed bus architecture for the Japanese car industry. As the requirement for comfort and safety grows, and density of in-vehicle electrical integration and networked systems increases, the implementation of supplier-independent standards in vehicle electronics is becoming increasingly important. To answer these needs, a growing number of electronic platforms that are based on defined standards must be incorporated to ensure optimum scalability, interoperability and stability.

austriamicrosystems has a long-standing history of being a reliable partner to the automotive industry. The company has successfully supplied a range of customer-specific and standardized ICs for automotive applications that provide superior quality. For example, with the AS8221, austriamicrosystems introduced the first standard product in a family of high-speed bus transceiver modules for automotive data bus applications. The AS8221 features outstanding performance along with the highest specification precision, and provides the basis for developing a generation of transceiver modules for in-car data transfer that are specifically tailored to the requirements of the Japanese market.

This focus and austriamicrosystems' proven expertise in high-speed bus systems and time-triggered technologies, were key factors when JasPar's founders decided to invite the company to become a formal member of the consortium. In addition to becoming a member of JasPar, austriamicrosystems is a Premium Associate of the international FlexRay consortium which promotes the adoption of the FlexRay communication system for high-speed communication networks for automotive applications.

Bernd Gessner, General Manager, Automotive at austriamicrosystems, views the invitation to join JasPar as recognition for the previous years' work: "The invitation to join the JasPar consortium not only reinforces austriamicrosystems' technological leadership in the automotive sector, but also opens up significant sales opportunities in the important Japanese market," he said. "We are proud to be a member of the JasPar consortium particularly since we are not a Japanese company, and we will dedicate our entire expertise in the field of time-triggered systems to the new data bus standard."