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The Inscrutability of Black Ice

The Inscrutability of Black Ice

By David Benjamin

“As someone who doesn’t drive, I am not sure how an AI would handle icy road conditions… Autonomous cars are not going to get angry, commit road rage-related crimes, or panic when suddenly confronted with black ice.” —Johnna Crider, CleanTechnica, Dec. 23, 2021

Like many other folks, I’ve faced the prospect of death a number of times. But in none of those circumstances was I ever palpably scared — until the whole horror was over with and I had a chance to think of how close I’d come to strolling into the sunset hand-in-hand with the Grim Reaper.

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Automotive Chip Drought Alters OEM/Supplier Balance of Power

Automotive Chip Drought Alters OEM/Supplier Balance of Power

By Junko Yoshida

What’s at stake?
With last year’s chip shortage expected to linger well into 2022, any quick fix is fantasy. Automotive OEMs’ dramatic rethink of next-gen architectures extends to their IC partners, which face new expectations for interchangeable platforms and improved visibility into their business. OEMs are spending massively, and chip designers want that money. The questions come down to the accommodations chipmakers are willing to make, and how creative their solutions will be, as they pursue tighter OEM relationships.  

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Datacenter on Wheels

TOPS Priorities Shift for ‘Datacenter on Wheels’

By Junko Yoshida

What’s at stake?
As the activity around CES 2022 makes clear, tech suppliers are hurtling toward more computing power, AI acceleration, and higher-resolution sensors for automotive platforms. But as compute and sensor capabilities grow exponentially, so does the pressure on auto OEMs to pick the right building blocks and implement them to optimal effect in their next-generation cars.

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Daniel Cooley

Silicon Labs’ CTO on IoT ‘Catalyst Moments’

By Junko Yoshida

What’s at stake?‌
‌When it comes to easy-to-use IoT, we are still not there. The stakes are high for a pure-play IoT company like Silicon Labs. Silicon Labs’ CTO Daniel Cooley explains why Matter, an upcoming smart-home interoperability protocol backstopped by Apple, Google and others, matters in the consumer IoT space. He also pinpoints the breakthrough events in IoT’s journey thus far.

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Intel: Time to Break up the Mothership

Intel: Time to Break up the Mothership

By Bolaji Ojo

What’s at stake?
Intel has long ruled the semiconductor world, but its dominance is coming to an end. The proposed IPO of its Mobileye division heralds a new dawn marked by the potential breakup of the industry icon.

Intel Corp. wants to hang on as the majority shareholder at Mobileye after it takes its automotive-IC subsidiary public in 2022. That status will last only a few years following the initial public offering. The same forces that led CEO Pat Gelsinger to reconsider Mobileye’s position as an integral part of Intel’s continuing operations will compel the full separation of the unit and result in even more fundamental changes at the parent.

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Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger (right) and Professor Amnon Shashua, Intel senior vice president and president and CEO of Mobileye, talk during Gelsinger’s visit to Mobileye headquarters in Israel in 2021. (Credit: Mobileye, an Intel Company)

Intel/Mobileye: Not All Mergers Create Equals

By Junko Yoshida

What’s at stake?
Intel acquired Mobileye in 2017 — nearly a year into the two companies’ joint AV development partnership with BMW — with great expectations for the autonomous-vehicle revolution. But a lot has changed in four years. Today, BMW is hitching a ride with Qualcomm on ADAS/AV development. Next year, Intel will take Mobileye public. At stake is whether Intel can chart an automotive roadmap for Intel-branded products, independent of its high-flying subsidiary.

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Wideband Gap Semiconductor Applications.

Silicon Carbide Gets Ready for Prime Time

By Bolaji Ojo

What’s at stake

Those who invested early in silicon carbide are seeing their efforts start to pay off. But competitors are popping up everywhere, putting more SiC-related M&A and partnership deals in place. The question is who, over time, can build the right ecosystem to advance SiC technologies, bring down costs and ensure a stable supply of raw materials and SiC wafers.

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Unprocessed SiC wafers are transparent, complicating many of the manufacturing steps.

Early Laps of Silicon Carbide Race Go to ST

By Junko Yoshida

What’s at stake?‌
‌Vehicle electrification helped push silicon carbide (SiC) out of labs and into systems, making SiC a commercially viable alternative to silicon-based power electronics. Some high-profile names have played key roles in that transition, but it may be too early for any company to claim victory in the evolving SiC technology race. Who’s best positioned to profit from the decades-long SiC development effort?

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