Mercedes-Benz turns Silicon Valley Chip Group out to a new company

* Athos silicon to develop energy-efficient slides for self-managed cars * Athos receives significant investments and intellectual property from Mercedes-Benz * Athos aims to work together with various car manufacturers * Power savings that are very important for electric vehicles, Athos CEO emphasized by Stephen Nellis San Francisco, 26 (Reuters) -Mercedes-Benz on Friday in a new company A group of Chip Expendes in Mercedes-Benz on Friday Silicon Valley who works on creating a new generation computer brains for self-managed cars, drones and other vehicles. Athos Silicon, based in Santa Clara, California, will house a group of engineers who worked for five years at Mercedes-Benz Research & Development North America to develop the new chips, which aim to be safe enough for use in cars while using less energy than existing chips. As part of the spinout, Athos receives intellectual property developed by the group, and which described Mercedes-Benz as a ‘significant’ investment, although neither the car manufacturer nor Athos announced the value of the transaction. For slides used in cars, reliability is key, so critical self -management functions are often handled by two or more separate chips to have backups in the event of a failure. The Athos team has developed a way to get the same kind of reliability using “Chiplets”, which are small pieces of chips that can be tied together in a single package. Keeping the chips in a single package can use 10 to 20 times less power than having separate chips that need to communicate with each other over a circuit board, Athos Silicon CEO Charnjiv Bangar said in an interview on Friday. Those power savings are important in electric vehicles where the computer’s computer brains with its wheels have to compete for limited battery power. “For an electric future, electricity is a new currency,” Bangar said. Athos Silicon intends to raise venture capital with other investors. Bangar refused to disclose the exact importance of Mercedes-Benz, but said the car manufacturer would be a minority shareholder and that the chipfirm would have an independent board. “Independence is important for Athos, so we can reach out to other (car manufacturers), Mercedes competitors. We need to make sure we have a neutral approach,” Bangar said. (Reporting by Stephen Nellis in San Francisco editing by Nick Zieminski)