LONDON — Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd., the world's largest foundry, is in European talks to enter the safety-critical automotive silicon market. Infineon Technologies AG, which claims to be number two in automotive silicon, is one way TSMC could make its move.

Typically IDMs, while prepared to outsource digital CMOS requirements to foundries, have kept specialized processes proprietary, and when offering chips made on such processes for safety-critical applications carmakers have valued the strict traceability and guaranteed long-term supply.

As a result the automotive market has divided into three areas. The 'brown' goods that have entered the cabin in the form of infotainment have largely stayed as consumer electronics grade products. The automotive electronics of non-critical systems, such as smart power for window movement, have been open to outsourcing, while the key safety-critical systems such as engine-management and automatic braking systems have required the higher specification of 'zero-defect' manufacturing.

Maria Marced, president of TSMC Europe BV who was attending a two-day conference organized by the Institute of Engineering and Technology and the Global Semiconductor Alliance, said TSMC was increasingly focused on "platform" offerings created with the relevant specifications and required intellectual property for different applications - including automotive.

"It's a design platform," Marced emphasized saying that the real deliverable from TSMC is silicon, but acknowledging that enhanced specifications, processor IP, logic and I/O blocks and firmware could all be part of the enabling offering.

"Europe is a center of excellence for mixed-signal and communications and automotive are driving the market. We want to capitalize on that," Marced said.