Telechips to begin autonomous car AI chip development 

Telechips will began development of a semiconductor chip for use in advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) for autonomous cars, the company said.

The neural processing unit (NPU) based ADAS neural dolphin application processor will began development in October at the earliest, Telechips said.

The chip will support Level 2.5 or Level 3 autonomous driving, the company said. It will be commercially launched in 2023 or 2024 and Telechips was discussing the matter with its client.

The chip will power object recognition and various AI technology on self-driving cars.

Telechips was also developing a vehicle control processor, since last year. It beefs up security in car systems and supports telecommunication. Telechips is expecting first samples of the processor in the first half of 2021 at the earliest. Once its client approves, they will go into mass production near the end of 2022.

Telechips has focused on system-on-a-chip (SoC) for in-vehicle infotainment (IVI). The company has expanded into cockpit systems recently. Cockpits combine IVI system and the digital cluster into one application.

Telechips said it didn’t lack behind rivals such as Qualcomm and NXP in SoC for digital cockpits. It will expand to semiconductor chips for automobiles, step by step, it said.

The company launched Dolphin+, a cockpit application processor, in 2018. This year it launched the Dolphin 3 which combines IVI and ADAS features into one chip. Dolphin 3 can be used for both budget-model cockpits and high-end cockpits. It will go into production in 2021. Dolphin 5, which will have an NPU, is also in development and will launch in 2021 or 2022. Samsung Foundry will contract produce the chips using the 8nm process.

Telechips is also heading the national mobile AI processor platform technology project that started this year.