Manufacturers of CEN/UNI DSRC On-Board Units (OBUs) for Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), particularly Electronic Toll Collection (ETC), operate in a highly cost-sensitive market. As these units are mainly battery-powered, their power budget must also be tightly controlled to ensure a long operational lifetime.
While the communication IC represents only a small share of the overall system cost, its performance, power efficiency, and level of integration can have a much broader impact on the final product.
The customer was looking for a custom ASIC solution that would keep development costs under control, optimize the bill of materials (BOM), and extend the operational lifetime of its OBU platform while remaining fully compliant with European CEN and UNI DSRC standards.
This project illustrates how a platform-based ASIC approach can deliver meaningful product differentiation by reducing system costs, improving performance, and accelerating development.
Presto Engineering developed a customer-specific ASIC leveraging its CHARON platform, a customizable single-chip architecture for CEN/UNI DSRC On-Board Units.
By building upon an existing platform architecture, development was significantly accelerated while reducing non-recurring engineering (NRE) costs. The CHARON platform also enabled a high level of system integration by embedding functions traditionally implemented with external components, including:
An integrated 50 Ω antenna interface, replacing complex passive RF matching networks.
An internal oscillator eliminates the need for an external crystal and reduces the overall bill of materials.
Native support for CEN and UNI DSRC standards, ensuring interoperability with existing tolling infrastructure.
An ultra-low-power listening mode combined with an intelligent false wake-up discriminator, enabling battery operation for more than seven years while maintaining reliable performance in increasingly congested RF environments.
Beyond ASIC development, Presto Engineering also managed industrialization, test development, qualification, and volume production, providing the customer with a complete path from specification to manufacturing.
Outcome: Lower System Cost and Extended Product Lifetime
Leveraging the CHARON platform enabled the customer to reduce both development costs and the overall system bill of materials, improving the competitiveness of its OBU solution. Beyond cost reduction, reusing an existing platform architecture significantly reduced development risks and accelerated time-to-market.
The new ASIC architecture increased robustness against RF interference while extending battery lifetime, delivering a more reliable and longer-lasting product without compromising compatibility with existing infrastructure.
By combining a platform-based development approach with end-to-end semiconductor expertise, Presto Engineering helped the customer accelerate development, reduce project risk, and bring a cost-effective, production-ready solution to market.
The CHARON platform offers a compelling alternative between off-the-shelf ASSPs and fully custom ASIC developments, combining the cost and time advantages of a proven platform with the flexibility and differentiation of a customer-specific design.
Discover more about our CHARON Silicon Platform