Audi 2006 Annual Report Download - page 63

Torsten Gollewski next
to the PMD’s chip design.
It shows the highly
magnified structure of
the 1,024-pixel chip.
“Modern technology is immensely enjoyable,”
believes Johannes Köbler (44). The freelance
motoring journalist has been monitoring
developments in the car industry for the past
15 years. “Technology is exciting. But the most exciting
thing is the people who are behind it,” he says. Köbler
has also penned a profile of Wolfgang Hatz and his new
TFSI engines (page 20) for the Audi Annual Report.
61AUDI 2006 ANNUAL REPORT
around 20,000 PMD sensors in 2006. The prices
should come down rapidly as production volume
increases. A complete PMD unit currently costs
between 75 and 260 euros, depending on the
quantity ordered and its application. In a few
years the price will fall again quite significantly
thanks to the continuing integration of system
components into the PMD silicon. “PMDTech-
nologies is a prime example of a company spun
off from university research activities, which is
unfortunately still a rare breed in Germany,”
summarises Torsten Gollewski. And the story
continues. 60 specialists are working on incorpo-
rating photonic mixer devices into cars – at AEV,
PMDTechnologies and the supplier Harman/
Becker, which is also involved. The project has
also garnered acclaim at a political level. The see-
i
ng diode was nominated for the German Future
Prize in 2002, and in 2005 it captured the Hermes
Award, one of German industry’s top technology
prizes. In the same year, Professor Schwarte was
awarded the Federal Order of Merit (First Class)
in recognition of his research work.
The example of the PMD diode demonstrates
how AEV, founded in 2001 and a fully-owned
subsidiary of AUDI AG, operates. The technology
scouts from Gaimersheim track down innovative
basic technology at an early stage and help
to bring it to production maturity and onto the
market, as well as paving the way for the estab-
lishment of joint ventures. AEV brings together
people, knowledge and capital in its core dis-
ciplines of electronics architecture, sensor
technology and software; it generates beneficial
effects for the group parent by managing tech-
nology and market requirements.
“Small islands of innovation”
AEV regards its small scale – it employs fewer
than 100 employees – as a positive virtue thanks
to the flexibility that this allows; flexibility is a
vital attribute on the electronics and software
scene, where product cycles are much shorter
than in the car business. The think-tank in
Gaimersheim serves as an uncomplicated dock-
ing-on point to the parent company Audi for
external start-ups.