Roundtable Discussion: Building Trust in Automotive SerDes: It Works. But Is It Robust?

Open standards and multi-vendor ecosystems are enabling the supply-chain flexibility and resilience required by the automotive industry. But they also raise a fundamental question: Two devices communicate successfully today. Is that enough to trust the link after years of aging, temperature cycles, component variation, EMC disturbances and channel degradation? 

Interoperability is essential, but interoperability alone does not necessarily demonstrate that a link has sufficient margin, or that the individual transmitter and receiver are compliant and robust. 

The objective of this roundtable is therefore to look beyond “it works” and discuss what is required to build long-term confidence in an automotive SerDes link: interoperability, compliance, margin, EMC robustness and real-world operating conditions. 

The discussion should also address responsibility across the automotive supply chain. What should be the respective roles of standards organizations, semiconductor vendors, Tier 1s and OEMs? Ultimately, who should act as the compliance gatekeeper?