The companies - Arm, ASE, BMW Group, Bosch, Cadence Design Systems, Siemens, SiliconAuto, Synopsys, Tenstorrent and Valeo - are joining the program which is a pre-competitive research effort that’s intended to evaluate which chiplet architectures and packaging technologies are best suited to support car manufacturers' specific high-performance computing and strict safety requirements. In addition, the program will also look to extend the benefits of chiplet technology – such as increased flexibility, improved performance and cost savings – to the entire automotive industry.
Car makers have been integrating chip technology into their vehicles since the late 1970s, however traditional chip architectures are now struggling to meet the requirements of ever more demanding automotive solutions, such as advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and immersive in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) services.
As a result, there is a growing interest in chiplets, which are modular chips that are specifically designed to perform specialised functions efficiently and can be seamlessly combined to create more sophisticated compute systems.
“The adoption of chiplet technology would signal a disruptive shift in central vehicle computer design, offering distinct advantages over traditional monolithic approaches. Chiplets facilitate rapid customisation and upgrades, while reducing development time and costs,” explained Bart Placklé, vice-president of automotive technologies at imec. “However, moving to a chiplet architecture is prohibitively expensive for OEMs if done in isolation. Commercial viability thus hinges on industry alignment around a set of chiplet standards, enabling car manufacturers to procure chiplets from the market and integrate them with proprietary chiplets to build unique offerings.”
Companies developing supercomputing, data centre and smartphone solutions have long explored the benefits of chiplet technology to meet their rapidly increasing computing needs. But the automotive industry has been more reluctant to embrace the chiplet paradigm due to the unique challenges they face.
Firstly, automotive solutions must meet strict robustness and reliability requirements, ensuring continuous operation and passenger safety over a car's typical lifespan of ten to fifteen years. Moreover, cost is another crucial factor to consider. And, finally, superior performance and exceptional energy efficiency are critical to preserving a car's battery life.
These are some of the urgent issues imec's Automotive Chiplet Program will address.
Imec’s Automotive Chiplet Program leverages imec’s track record in advanced 2.5D and 3D packaging with resources and expertise from different parts of the automotive value chain.
Commenting Placklé said, “The agility of chiplets will allow the automotive ecosystem to respond quickly to changing market demands and technological breakthroughs. They also facilitate flexible component integration, limiting the risk of vendor lock-in and improving supply chain resilience. In addition, their optimised performance leads to lower power requirements, enabling compact device design.”
“We are convinced that all stakeholders will gain important insights from the program’s pre-competitive, collaborative approach – leveraging the partners’ collective wisdom and means to make rapid progress.
“The valuable precompetitive learnings from the program can be instantiated in further R&D and product innovation to accelerate the partners’ own differentiating, long-term roadmaps. In fact, this methodology mirrors the successful practices established in the semiconductor industry over the past four decades.
“With 40 years of experience in designing, building, and optimising chip architectures and technologies, and without allegiance to any stakeholder in the automotive ecosystem, imec is uniquely positioned to guide the car manufacturing industry towards the development of a groundbreaking new chiplet architecture tailored to the sector’s specific needs,” Placklé concluded.
