Belgium-based research and innovation hub imec has announced a strategic alignment initiative with Japan’s Advanced SoC Research for Automotive (ASRA) on standardization of chiplet architectures for automotive applications.

Specifically, imec and ASRA have agreed to jointly explore and promote shared architecture specifications, giving partners confidence that the technologies they develop will be scalable, interoperable, and widely adoptable. The initiative aims to introduce a joint public specification document by mid 2026.

Need for Seamless Interoperability

Of late, there have been chiplet standards that are emerging and this is instrumental in revolutionizing automotive system design. It leverages modular building blocks to create systems that are more powerful, efficient, and flexible while cutting costs and development time.

For chiplets to scale and strengthen supply chain resilience, seamless interoperability between components from different vendors is essential. Achieving this requires shared reference architectures and standardized interfaces and this is an area where the ecosystem is beginning to face challenges.

For that reason, imec and ASRA announced the strategic alignment initiative to bring the two leading automotive chiplet efforts. Currently, imec’s Automotive Chiplet Program (ACP) connects nearly 20 international partners across the value chain while ASRA unites top Japanese OEMs, including key suppliers.

Bart Placklé, vice president of imec’s automotive technologies, said, “As the chiplet ecosystem expands, alignment and strong cross-industry collaboration will be critical to achieve economies of scale and accelerate commercial adoption.”

Meanwhile, Nobuaki Kawahara, executive director at ASRA said, “This collaboration will benefit both imec’s ACP partners and ASRA members, supporting future industry standardization. Currently, each OEM has different powertrains, vehicle variants, and electronic platforms. This approach will enable the provision of optimal SoCs for electronic platforms through chip combinations.”

19 December 2025