The VLSI Society of India (VSI) officially inaugurated the 38th edition of International Conference on VLSI Design & 24th International Conference on Embedded Systems on 6 January 2025 at The Leela Palace, Bengaluru.

With the theme ‘Silicon Meets AI: Sustainable Innovations in Accelerated Computing, Secure Connectivity & Intelligent Mobility’, the inaugural ceremony got off to a great start. The ceremony was addressed by Dr Chris Miller, Professor at Tufts University and author of Chip War: The Fight for the World's Most Critical Technology, who also highlighted the major points concerning the industry in a ‘Chip-Pe-Charcha’ session which was moderated by Dr Satya Gupta, President, VSI. The event highlighted the vital role that VLSI and Embedded Systems play in advancing revolutionary developments in AI/ML, 5G, IoT, quantum computing, and electric vehicles. With over 2,700 registrants, 18 keynote speakers, 32 tutorials, 74 papers, five expert panels, 16 user design sessions, more than 50 exhibits, 13 industry forum sessions, 15 design contest finalists and more than 30 sponsors, the esteemed symposium reaffirmed its status as a premier worldwide event at VLSID 2025.

Dr Satya Gupta, President VLSI Society of India, said, “The VLSID 2025 conference is a remarkable convergence of global talent and innovation. It provides a unique opportunity to address the complex challenges of tomorrow while fostering collaboration across the semiconductor and AI ecosystems. The world is watching India making great tech strides in semiconductors. This conference puts another spotlight on India.”

Patrick Johnson, Senior Corporate Vice President, Microchip Technology and an executive chair of the VLSI Design Conference, said, “The integration of Silicon and AI has unlocked unprecedented opportunities. VLSID 2025 is the ideal platform to explore how these advancements can redefine mobility, connectivity and computing.”

Sandeep Bharathi, Chief Development Officer, Marvell Technology, said, “With the emerging semiconductor ecosystem across Design and Manufacturing, AI and ML are going to be essential to speed up learning and integrating processes to strengthen the ecosystem. AI and ML are not just disrupting the semiconductor design ecosystem – they're redefining its very fabric, empowering innovators to dream bigger and push the boundaries of what's possible. We are glad that we could provide an ideal platform at VLSID 2025 to further explore how these advancements can redefine mobility, connectivity and give rise to a new generation of technological breakthroughs.”

Hitesh Garg, Vice President and India Managing Director, NXP Semiconductors, said, “The semiconductor industry's future growth and innovation rely heavily on a robust talent pipeline and a thriving startup ecosystem. Programmes that facilitate industry-academia exchanges, provide students and young professionals with hands-on training and mentorship that can foster a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship and stay competitive in the global market. VLSID 2025 provides an excellent cross learning opportunity among industry participants, startup ecosystem and academia. It also enables students and researchers to present their ideas to industry veterans and address emerging challenges and capitalise on new opportunities.”

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GAC International and Grab have established a strategic partnership to deploy 20,000 electric vehicles (EVs) across six Southeast Asian countries within the next two years. The agreement, signed on 7 January 2025, marks a shift for GAC from product exports to the expansion of an integrated ecosystem comprising products, services and data.

The collaboration focuses on the introduction of three models under the AION brand: the AION Y, AION ES and AION V. These vehicles will be integrated into Grab's fleet to serve the taxi and ride-hailing segments. The AION V, which holds a Euro NCAP five-star safety rating, is positioned as the flagship SUV for the region, while the AION Y and ES models target the high-volume electric taxi market.

Beyond vehicle supply, the companies intend to integrate the Grab driver app directly into GAC’s intelligent cockpit systems. This technical link is designed to improve order acceptance efficiency and driver safety. The partnership also covers the development of aftersales support, data value mining and charging infrastructure to support the large-scale deployment of EVs in the region.

Xia Xianqing, President of GAC Group, attended the exchange, while the agreement was signed by Wang Shunsheng, Vice President of GAC International, and Dylan Choon, Regional Manager of Strategic Partnerships at Grab.

The move comes as the Southeast Asian EV market reported a 50 percent YoY sales increase in 2024. By leveraging Grab’s user base, GAC aims to build brand awareness and gather market insights for future model development. The initiative is intended to reduce regional transport emissions in line with carbon neutrality targets.

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Visteon Corporation has announced an expanded technology partnership with Mahindra & Mahindra that will see its next-generation SmartCore Pro cockpit domain controller deployed in Mahindra’s XUV7X0 SUV lineup.

Unveiled at CES 2026, the SmartCore Pro builds on the SmartCore system introduced in the Mahindra XUV700 in 2021. The new system integrates cockpit electronics, surround view camera technology and telematics on Mahindra’s Adrenox+ platform. It features a three-display configuration supporting vehicle information, infotainment, ADAS visualisation and connectivity, alongside an integrated 360-degree camera system.

Francis Kim, Vice-President of Global Sales & Commercial Excellence and General Manager for Rest of Asia, Visteon, said, “The automotive industry is shifting from discrete systems to fully integrated digital platforms, and India is among the fastest-moving markets in this transition. This partnership demonstrates how strategic OEM collaboration can accelerate time-to-market for complex technologies while laying the foundation for software-defined vehicles.”

Alongside the Mahindra announcement, Visteon also showcased the production specifications and OEM implementations of its High-Performance Compute solution built on the Snapdragon Cockpit Elite platform. The solution follows Visteon’s collaboration with Qualcomm Technologies announced at Auto Shanghai 2025 and is now being demonstrated with multiple global OEMs.

The High-Performance Compute platform supports centralised vehicle architectures and software-defined vehicle strategies. It enables on-device AI processing, multi-display support, multi-user experiences and personalised cockpit features. The system uses the Qualcomm Oryon CPU, Qualcomm Adreno GPU and enhanced NPU AI performance, while Visteon’s cognitoAI Concierge digital assistant operates using the company’s QWEN 7B model.

Uday Dodla, Vice-President, Product Management, Visteon, said, “This High-Performance Compute solution addresses a critical challenge our OEM partners face as they transition to centralized architectures. By consolidating multiple ECUs into a single, powerful platform, we're enabling automakers to reduce complexity and costs while delivering the sophisticated AI-driven experiences that consumers increasingly expect.”

Mark Granger, VP, Product Management at Qualcomm Technologies, said, “Visteon's demonstration of its High-Performance Compute solution on the Snapdragon Cockpit Elite platform highlights the momentum toward centralized, software-defined architectures that will power the next era of intelligent, connected vehicles.”

Visteon said the platform is designed to support a common architecture across vehicle segments, allowing OEMs to scale features while consolidating electronic control units and supporting long-term cost efficiencies.

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French tier 1 supplier Valeo and Hero MotoCorp, the world’s largest manufacturer of motorcycles and scooters, have inked a strategic partnership for Advanced Rider Assistance Systems (ARAS).

The partnership will focus on enhancing rider safety by introducing advanced sensing, perception and intelligent technologies tailored specifically for two-wheelers across both entry-level and premium segments, including the OEM’s emerging electric mobility portfolio under VIDA. 

As part of the understanding, they will focus on ARAS by leveraging Valeo’s radar and smart camera tech equipped in Hero MotoCorp’s two-wheeler portfolio. This will not only enhance safety for two-wheeler users in India, but is also expected to drive awareness amongst customers globally.

The partners state that they have already achieved success in its proof-of-concept systems designed to protect both riders and pedestrians.

Marc Vrecko, CEO, Valeo’s Brain Division, said, “We are truly excited to partner with Hero MotoCorp to deliver solutions that will significantly enhance rider safety and create a more secure riding experience for millions of people. This collaboration is a key step in our strategy to bring advanced technology to the rapidly growing mobility market in India and globally.” 

Ram Kuppuswamy, COO, Plant Operations, Hero MotoCorp, said, “At Hero MotoCorp, we are redefining the future of mobility by bringing advanced technology to our products. Our partnership with Valeo marks a significant stride in making mobility smarter, safer and more sustainable with next-gen advanced rider assistance systems. Together, we aim to make two-wheeler safety accessible to everyone and set new standards for innovation and protection globally.” 

The ARAS architecture is developed as a digital co-pilot for riders, providing a 360deg safety envelope around the vehicle, it provides real-time sensing and intelligent alerts. It uses a radar-based system that can provide critical information/warnings such as Forward Collision Warning (FCW), Distance Warning (DW), Lane Change Assist (LCA), Blind Spot Detection (BSD) and Rear Collision Warning (RCW).

On the other hand, the vision system uses high-resolution cameras to provide Pedestrian Detection, Lane Detection, Traffic Sign Recognition and Lane Departure Warning.

Through intelligent image processing the system identifies road signs and obstacles, even in low-light conditions. Through the combination of radar and vision system, the two-wheeler encompasses a comprehensive safety system for two-wheeler users.

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SiMa.ai has announced its first integrated capability resulting from a collaboration with Synopsys. The joint solution provides a blueprint to accelerate architecture exploration and virtual software development for automotive Systems-on-Chip (SoCs). These chips support applications including Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) and In-Vehicle Infotainment (IVI).

The partnership aims to deliver architectures required for software-defined vehicles. The blueprint allows customers to begin the design and validation of custom AI SoCs and ‘shift left’ software development before silicon is available. This process is intended to reduce development costs and accelerate vehicle time-to-market.

The blueprint provides pre-integrated SoC virtual prototypes and a tool workflow using solutions from both companies.

For Architectural Exploration:

• SiMa.ai MLA Performance and Power Estimator (MPPE): Enables customers to size machine learning accelerator designs for specific workloads.
• Synopsys Platform Architect: Used to model workloads and analyse performance, power, memory, and interconnect trade-offs before RTL design.

For Verification and Validation:

• Synopsys Virtualiser Development Kit (VDK): Facilitates software development using a virtual SoC prototype, which can accelerate vehicle time-to-market by up to 12 months.
• SiMa.ai Palette SDK: Supports machine learning workflows for edge AI applications.
• Synopsys ZeBu Emulation: Delivers pre-silicon hardware and software validation to ensure architectures meet workload requirements.

Krishna Rangasayee, Founder & CEO at SiMa.ai, said, "We are pleased with how well the two teams have worked together to quickly create a joint solution uniquely focused on unlocking physical AI capabilities for today's software defined vehicles. Our best-in-class ML platform, combined with Synopsys' industry-leading automotive-grade IP and design automation software creates a powerful foundation for innovation across OEMs in autonomous driving and in-vehicle experiences."

Ravi Subramanian, Chief Product Management Officer, Synopsys, said, "Automotive OEMs need to deliver software-defined AI-enabled vehicles faster to market to drive differentiation, which requires early power optimisation and validation of the compute platform to reduce total cost of development and time to SOP. Our collaboration with SiMa.ai delivering an ML-enabled architecture exploration and software development blueprint supported by a comprehensive integrated suite of tools significantly jumpstarts these activities and enables our automotive customers to bring next-generation ADAS and IVI features to market faster."

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