Qualcomm launches auto chip to handle both assisted driving and entertainment

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IAA MOBILITY 2021 show in Munich
Qualcomm logo is during Munich Auto Show, IAA Mobility 2021 in Munich, Germany, September 8, 2021. REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay

OAKLAND, Calif., Jan 4 (Reuters) - Mobile chip maker Qualcomm Technologies, Inc (QCOM.O) on Wednesday unveiled a processor chip for the car called Snapdragon Ride Flex SoC that handles both assisted driving and cockpit functions, including entertainment.

Previously those functions were handled on different chips and merging them can help bring down costs, said Nakul Duggal, Qualcomm’s head of automotive.

“Obviously you are reducing the number of physical boxes. So it goes down to a single box. You reduce the amount of memory that you need. The extra external components that you need, those go down,” Duggal told Reuters.

Qualcomm has been steadily building up its automotive business in recent years and in September it said its automotive business "pipeline" increased to $30 billion.

With electric vehicles and increasing autonomous features in cars, the number of chips used by automakers is surging and the automotive market has been a key growth area for chipmakers.

Duggal said automotive customers are already trying out the new chip and it would be commercially available in the first half of next year.

Reporting by Jane Lanhee Lee; Editing by Cynthia Osterman

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Thomson Reuters

Reports on global trends in computing from covering semiconductors and tools to manufacture them to quantum computing. Has 27 years of experience reporting from South Korea, China, and the U.S. and previously worked at the Asian Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones Newswires and Reuters TV. In her free time, she studies math and physics with the goal of grasping quantum physics.

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