Mercedes-Benz has collaborated with independent Athos Silicon based on its own research to standardize computing for autonomous driving using next-generation chiplet technology.
🟧 Mercedes-Benz and Athos Silicon to co-create next-generation chip standards
Mercedes-Benz announced that it has partnered with Athos Silicon, founded by former MBRDNA (North American R&D Center) engineers, to jointly design reference designs for next-generation semiconductors essential for autonomous computing. This will expand the company’s research results to the entire industry and accelerate the mass production of new in-vehicle computing platforms using chiplet technology.
- Adopts advanced chiplet architecture originally studied at MBRDNA to improve performance, cost, and flexibility
- Athos Silicon’s mSoC™ platform delivers scalability, short development cycles, and safety
- As a basic technology that can be applied to other than automobiles, we are looking to expand it to a wide range of industrial fields
🟧 Why this announcement now – background and industry trends
Conventional monolithic SoCs have shown limitations in realizing autonomous driving, and flexible and high-performance chip designs are required. Chiplets are a new method of combining small chips to achieve large-scale processing, which is also effective in improving development efficiency and yield.
Mercedes became the first automaker to join the UCIe consortium in 2023 and is actively involved in standardization activities. With Tesla developing its own chips and NVIDIA and Qualcomm leading the automotive SoC market, the company is aiming to take the lead in the automotive industry’s semiconductor strategy by establishing a “standard co-creation” position.
🟧Summary
This is a step in expanding Mercedes-Benz’s role from an “automaker” to a “co-creator of the semiconductor ecosystem.” The collaboration with Athos Silicon, with chiplets at its core, is a key stepping stone towards the evolution of autonomous computing and has the potential to have implications for the entire industry.
Chiplets have been treated like monopoly patents of major semiconductor companies, but with the involvement of automakers like this one, I feel that we are getting closer to a “common platform that everyone can use”.
