Qualcomm ups automotive ante with Snapdragon Ride Flex

Mobile chip maker Qualcomm Technologies on Wednesday unveiled a family of processors for cars called the Snapdragon Ride Flex SoC that handles both assisted driving and cockpit functions, including entertainment.

Previously those functions were handled by 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 said in an interview.

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

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