Japanese autonomous driving software company Tier IV has joined the Automotive Chiplet Program led by imec, an industry effort focused on developing chiplet-based semiconductor architectures for automotive applications.
The company said its participation in the initiative will support its strategy to deliver scalable autonomous driving solutions across multiple vehicle platforms and operational scenarios.
Chiplet technology allows semiconductor systems to be built by combining smaller chips with specialized functions into a single package. This modular approach can enable software to run across different silicon platforms without relying on a single hardware vendor, offering flexibility for automakers and technology providers.
Tier IV said it has already developed a LiDAR accelerator designed for high-speed processing of 3D point-cloud data. The company’s research within the Automotive Chiplet Program will now focus on AI accelerators optimized for neural network workloads used in autonomous driving, including perception and planning functions.
By participating in the initiative, Tier IV aims to ensure its open-source autonomous driving platform Autoware remains compatible with emerging chiplet standards across the automotive semiconductor ecosystem.
“Joining imec’s ACP allows us to harmonise open-source software with silicon based on open standards,” said Shinpei Kato. “Regardless of the underlying computing architecture, our goal is to ensure that Autoware and our AI-based models deliver peak performance through optimised chiplet designs.”
Bart Placke said the collaboration brings together semiconductor research and autonomous software development expertise.
“With Tier IV on board, we can combine our semiconductor and system integration expertise with their leading capabilities in autonomous driving software and reference platforms,” Placke said.
The Automotive Chiplet Program is part of broader industry efforts to standardize next-generation automotive computing architectures, as vehicles increasingly rely on high-performance processors to support automated driving and advanced driver assistance systems.