Mercedes-Benz spins out Silicon Valley chip group into new company

Athos Silicone will develop energy -saving chips for self -going cars

Athos receives important investment and intellectual property from Mercedes-Benz

Athos, independence to cooperate with multiple automobile manufacturers

Very important power savings for electric vehicles, ATHOS CEO

San Francisco, 26 September (Reuters) -Cuma on the day Mercedes-Benz, Silicon Valley, self-going cars, drones and other vehicles for a new generation of information processing to create a new company to create a new company.

Athos Silicon in California, Santa Clara, will host a group of engineers working in Mercedes-Benz Research and Development for five years in North America and using less energy than existing chips, while aiming to be safe enough to be used in cars.

As a part of Spinout, the intellectual property developed by the Athos Group, and what Mercedes-Benz describes as a “important” investment has not explained neither the car manufacturer nor the Athos transaction.

Reliability is important for chips used in cars, so critical self -driving functions are usually processed by two or more separate chips to have backups in case of a malfunction. The Athos team has developed a way to achieve the same reliability by using “Chiplets” with small chips that can be connected to each other in a single package.

In an interview on Friday, Athos Silicone CEO Charnjiv Bangar said that keeping the chips in a single package in a single package could use 10 to 20 times less power than having separate chips that need to communicate with each other along a circuit board. This power savings are important in electric vehicles that should compete with wheels for the limited battery power of the car’s computer brains.

“Electricity is a new currency for an electric future.” He said.

Athos Silicon plans to increase the venture capital from other investors. Bangar refused to disclose the exact stake of Mercedes-Benz, but said the car manufacturer would be the minority shareholder and the chip company would have an independent committee.

“Independence is important for Athos, so we can reach Mercedes’ rivals (automobile manufacturers). We must make sure we have an neutral approach.” He said. (Organizing Stephen Nellis in San Francisco by Nick Zieminski)