Infineon Technologies AG and Flex are collaborating on the development of software-defined vehicles (SDVs) at CES 2026 in the form of a zone controller development kit.
The kit is a modular design for zone control units (ZCUs) engineering to accelerate the development of SDV-ready architectures. The kit includes reusable assets that combine 30 unique building blocks that allow engineers to configure different ZCU implementations in short development cycles. It also offers a path from concept to series implementation, the companies said.
ZCUs connect and power several peripherals. Currently ZCUs do not remain consistent across vehicle platforms and models, meaning different ZCU requirements. The development kit allows engineers to size designs for many individual implementations while preserving room for future models, the company said.
The kit is designed to reduce the bill of materials for ZCUs and shorten development cycles as it can realize more than 50 power distribution, 40 connectivity and 10 load control channels for evaluation and application development, the companies said.
A dual MCU plug-on module is available for high end ZCU implementations where high I/O density and computational power are needed. This allows users to optimize either two cost effective MCUs or a single MCU based on feature and budget issues.
CES 2026 takes place January 6 to January 9, 2026, in Las Vegas, Nevada.
