[Featured Stock] Chips&Media Expected to Handle Samsung Electronics' 'Google Car' Chip... ISP IP Highlighted

[Asia Economy Reporter Hyunseok Yoo] Chips&Media, a semiconductor intellectual property (IP) specialist company, is showing strong performance. The news that Samsung Electronics has started developing a core chip to be installed in Google's next-generation autonomous vehicles appears to have influenced the stock price. The expectation that the related market will rapidly grow as investments in autonomous vehicles increase seems to have stimulated investor sentiment.

As of 9:40 AM on the 15th, Chips&Media was trading at 18,100 KRW, up 4.62% (800 KRW) compared to the previous trading day.

On the previous day, an IT specialized media reported that Samsung Electronics recently won the design project for next-generation autonomous vehicle chips to be used in Google's autonomous vehicle 'Waymo.' The chip is designed to process data collected from various sensors installed in autonomous vehicles such as LiDAR and radar, and to control all functions by exchanging information in real-time with Google's data centers. It serves as the core chip acting as the 'brain' of the autonomous vehicle, similar to the central processing unit (CPU) in a PC or the application processor (AP) in a smartphone.

Waymo, a subsidiary of Google, is the world's largest autonomous vehicle company. It manufactures autonomous vehicles known as 'Google Cars.' Compared to competitors including complete vehicle manufacturers, it has secured an overwhelming autonomous driving database (DB). Investment bank UBS projected that Waymo's revenue will reach 114 billion USD (approximately 129 trillion KRW) by 2030.

Samsung is evaluated to have seized an opportunity to expand its presence in the autonomous driving semiconductor chip market. Since 2016, it has collaborated with Tesla and has experience in developing chips related to vehicles and autonomous driving. The Waymo project is reported to be on a scale comparable to the Tesla chip development project.

Chips&Media holds related IPs in addition to its main product, video codec IP. As electronic products applying camera sensors diversify?such as advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) for safety and autonomous driving, drones (helicam), wearable cameras (action cams), and video security devices?it has secured ISP (Image Signal Processing) IP and CP (Computational Photography) IP and has been licensing them since 2018. It also possesses computer vision IP based on artificial intelligence technology.

ISP is an essential technology for products equipped with cameras. It functions to correct errors such as distortion and defects that basically occur in images input from camera sensors. Automatic braking systems for autonomous driving or pedestrian collision prevention require high-definition images captured by cameras. Since pedestrians must be identified not only during the day but also at night, CP functions that can improve recognition rates in low-light conditions are necessary. Chips&Media has launched new ISP and CP IP products.

Chips&Media, as an IP partner program collaborator, provides a video IP portfolio for various applications, enhancing accessibility to Samsung Electronics Foundry IP. Chips&Media's IP lineup offers high levels of performance, area, power consumption, and bandwidth, enabling partner companies to design more efficiently.