 |
July 26, 2004 – Nearly a year after a U.S. court ruling ran legislation requiring automotive tire pressure monitors off the road, companies making the sensors are still staying the course. SensoNor, a Norway-based company owned by Infineon Technologies AG, is gearing up for production launch in the U.S. market of tire pressure sensors tweaked to reduce cost.
The MEMS-based sensor, known as the SP30, is placed inside a tire in a so-called tire pressure monitoring system, or TPMS. A low-end TPMS tells drivers if a tire is under-inflated. A high-end system provides detailed information such as the pressure and temperature of each tire.
 |
SensoNor’s new SP30, known as a “masked” version, has its programming hard-wired into the device, whereas the previous version was programmed after manufacturing.
“There’s tremendous cost pressure all the way along the (supply) chain,” said John McGowan, senior director of marketing for Infineon Technologies North America Corp. Although he could not say how much the new SP30 would save customers, he said, providing a masked version of a product usually reduces costs between 5 and 10 percent.
The automobile industry is notorious for pricing pressures even under ordinary circumstances. Auto manufacturers usually offer new features as high-end options for which they can charge top dollar. Over the years, they decrease the price as they increase the volume until the feature becomes a near-standard item.
But TPMS is different. In 2000, the TREAD Act made the feature a required safety device and mandated that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) come up with rules about how and when it should be required — a development that made it difficult for vendors to follow traditional price curves.
NHTSA’s rule, however, was overturned last August, leaving companies wondering when they would need to roll out product, and how much of it.
Shortly before the court ruling, Infineon bought SensoNor to make inroads into the automotive market where, McGowan said, “we really hadn’t had a strong presence.”
The two firms also had synergies that McGowan said were obvious opportunities. Infineon had a strong technical and market position in making RF components for wireless communication (which TPMS uses to let the sensors communicate with the overall system.)
SensoNor was well established as an automotive sensor manufacturer. “It’s like peanut butter and jelly,” McGowan said.
Now that the sensor operation is fully integrated, SensoNor and its parent are also looking at additional ways to capitalize on their core strengths.
“We’re looking at whether there are processes (at SensoNor’s facility) that we can take advantage of,” McGowan said. And, he added, the company is looking at whether there are capabilities at Infineon that would be useful in Norway.
In the meantime, the company waits to see what NHTSA will say. Since August, the agency has solicited information from TPMS providers and has been writing a new ruling, according to Ray Tyson, an agency spokesman, who said the work is almost done.
However, the new ruling still must go through a review and pass muster with the Office of Management and Budget, an executive branch office that rebuffed a preliminary ruling that predated the one overturned last year. Tyson confirmed that the ruling will likely require cars to have MEMS-based sensors, but the phase-in schedule for the devices has not yet been announced.