TechInsights Teardown: Ford F-150 Lightning electronic control unit

The automotive industry is in the middle of its largest transition in its history as OEMs begin to switch from gasoline- and diesel-powered vehicles to electrified versions.

Most OEMs are eyeing a transition that will happen over the next decade with a majority of vendors saying by 2035, fleets will be electrified. Some are starting faster than others and rolling out new vehicles that can take advantage of consumer demand for new electric vehicles (EVs).

Ford has gotten involved big time with its own plans for multiple EVs coming. It also released its Ford F-150 Lightning, an electrified version of its most popular pickup.

The F-150 Lightning electronic control unit (ECU) is the heart of the vehicle that controls the major components of the vehicle including applications processors for advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and more.

The following is a partial deep dive into the F1-50 Lightning ECU.

Summary

• ADAS applications processor
• 768 MB DDRL SDRAM
• 512 MB LPDDR4x SDRAM

Release date: April 2022

Availability: Global

Target market: Automotive

The top side of the main board of the F-150 Lightning ECU contains the main memory and processors for the pickup. Source: TechInsights

Main board — Top

The top side of the main board of the F-150 Lightning ECU includes an Infineon 32-bit microcontroller and 128 MB of NOR flash memory. Also, it includes the 512 MB mobile LPDDR4x SDRAM and 128MB of DDR3L SDRAM memory from Micron. Other electronic components include:

• Texas Instruments’ 10A step-down DC-DC converter, single and dual LDO regulator
• ST Microelectronics’ 8KB serial EEPROM memory
• Mobileye’s vision system-on-chip
• On Semiconductor’s dual buffer, single inverter and power MOSFET
• Analog Device’s 10-bit SDTV video decoder and 10-bit SDIHD video decoder
• Maxim’s DC-DC converter and step-down DC-DC converter
• NXP Semiconductors’ ARM Cortex-A53 64-bit CPU and CAN transceiver
• Nexperia’s triple three-input AND gate

(Learn more about microcontrollers on Globalspec.com)

The bottom side of the main board of the F-150 Lightning ECU has more of the discrete components and power management ICs. Source: TechInsights

Main board — Bottom

The bottom half of the main board of the Ford F-150 Lightning ECU contains numerous other components such as:

• Infineon’s high-side power switch, dual MOSFETs and NOR flash memory
• Texas Instruments’ automotive comparator, four-bit bidirectional voltage-level translator, 4A load switch, step-down DC-DC converter
• On Semiconductor’s dual buffer, single inverter, non-inverting three-state buffer and power management

(Learn more about discrete components on Globalspec.com)

The overall components of the F-150 Lightning electronic control unit. Source: TechInsights

Manufacturing cost breakdown

• $114.77 — Integrated circuits
• $25.79 — Modules, discretes and connectors
• $16.47 — Non-electronic parts
• $15.63 — Substrates
• $13.57 — Component insertion
• $2.78 — Card test
• $1.65 — Final assembly and test