The Belgium Research Centre for Microelectronics (imec) recently announced the decision of its Automotive Chiplet Programme, which aims to bring together stakeholders from across the automotive ecosystem for pre-competitive studies to assess which chip architectures and packaging technologies are best suited to support the specific high-performance computing and stringent safety requirements of automakers. This program will help ensure the continued operation and passenger safety of the vehicle over a typical 10 to 15-year service life, taking into account the key factor of cost.
The development of smart cars has put forward extremely high requirements for the computing power of chips. Autonomous driving systems need to process massive amounts of data from a variety of sensors, and the chiplet design meets this need. By flexibly combining different processing units, such as CPU, GPU, NPU, etc., chiplet designs are able to deliver the required high-performance computing power while maintaining energy efficiency.
Bart Placklé, vice president of automotive technology at imec, said the adoption of chiplet technology will mark a disruptive shift in central vehicle computer design, with significant advantages over traditional monolithic solutions. Chiplets facilitate rapid customization and upgrades while reducing development time and costs. However, migrating to chiplet architectures in isolation can be prohibitively expensive for OEMs. As a result, commercial viability depends on the industry's consistency around a set of chiplet standards that enable automakers to source chiplets from the market and integrate them with proprietary chiplets to build unique products.
Pictured: Belgium's Microelectronics Research Center bets on automotive chiplets
imec's Automotive Chiplet Program leverages imec's world-leading track record in advanced 2.5D and 3D packaging, as well as resources and expertise from different parts of the automotive value chain. Bart Placklé also mentioned that the agility of chiplets will enable the automotive ecosystem to respond quickly to changing market needs and technological breakthroughs. They also facilitate flexible component integration, limit the risk of supplier lock-in, and improve supply chain resilience. In addition, their optimized performance reduces power requirements, enabling compact device designs.
In addition, Arm is driving the development of the chiplet ecosystem in the automotive industry, working with more than 20 partners across the automotive, infrastructure and mobility markets through the Arm Chiplet System Architecture (CSA) to enable common architectures for the next generation of chiplets. Arm is also promoting software standardization through SOAFEE, an industry-wide initiative that provides a unified architectural framework that fosters enhanced interoperability and ecosystem collaboration.
This initiative by imec is an unprecedented collaborative research effort in the automotive industry, and it will leverage the collective wisdom and means of its partners to achieve rapid growth. The valuable pre-competitive learning gains from this program can be applied to further R&D and product innovation to accelerate the development of a differentiated, long-term roadmap for the partners themselves.
In China, with the growing interest in Chiplet technology, some companies such as Xinli Intelligence and Arctic Xiongxin have begun to make efforts in the field of Chiplet on-board computing power chips. The development of these companies has not only promoted the progress of the domestic automotive chip industry, but also provided more choices for domestic automobiles.
