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By Max A. Cherney
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - German industrial giant Bosch will collaborate with U.S. chip startup Tenstorrent to develop a platform for standardizing the building blocks of automotive chips, Tenstorrent executives said.
The plans include developing a standard method to use a building block of modern chips, called chiplets, to create systems that can power vehicles with significantly different needs, Tenstorrent chief customer officer David Bennett said in an interview.
By combining different quantities and types of chiplets to form complete processors, the two companies aim to reduce costs and increase the speed of bringing new silicon products to the automotive industry.
"(Bosch is) collaborating with us to essentially redefine how automakers look at silicon - purchasing silicon and building silicon," Bennett said.
Hastened by the introduction of electric vehicles, autos have increasingly become products that resemble large computer systems that operate via a battery on four wheels.
The technical complexity of introducing electrification and automated driving systems has pushed vehicle makers to pursue new avenues to build or buy the necessary chips.
Chip giants such as Nvidia, Qualcomm and the Intel-owned Mobileye produce a range of driver assistance chips and associated software.
The idea behind the collaboration with Bosch is that standardizing the technical requirements around the chiplet building blocks could lower prices, Bennett said.
Producing a large volume of a standard chiplet that could be added or removed as needed for each application would save cash. Automakers would also be afforded more customization options for each design, versus buying off-the-shelf parts, Tenstorrent automotive vice president Thaddeus Fortenberry said.
The collaboration does not yet include any specific products or sales to automakers.
Tenstorrent is helmed by Jim Keller, who headed Tesla's efforts to design a chip for autonomous driving. Keller has designed chips for AMD and Apple, among others.
(Max A. Cherney in San Francisco; Editing by Varun H K)
