Freescale buys CogniVue

The acquisition will boost Freescale's capability in autonomous car technology.

Freescale Semiconductor Inc. has announced the acquisition of CogniVue Corp., an image cognition IP developer based in Canada.

Over the past four years, the latter played a critical role in Freescale's advanced driver assistance system SoC solutions as a key vision IP partner.

By bringing CogniVue's IP and its development team in-house, Freescale hopes to lead the safety-critical ADAS and eventually autonomous car market with its own IP—developed from the very start as "automotive qualified."

Davide Santo, Freescale's safety and chassis segment manager based in Munich, Germany, explained that safety cannot be an afterthought. He told EETimes that the acquisition of CogniVue affords Freescale the opportunity to develop vision IP "that is designed in lockstep with Freescale's automotive safety requirement knowledge." This will "ease our internal work," and "our integration of safety-critical hardware and software."

Freescale declined to disclose how much it spent for the deal or how big a workforce the company is getting from CogniVue. It said the latter's team would be easily integrated into Freescale's automotive MCU group. The company stressed the acquisition is not about investing in revenue but rather in R&D.

To read the full article, please go to EETimes.

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