Sehat Sutardja and Weili Dai, the founders of Marvell Technology Group, led a $26.5 million fundraising round for Aviva Technology Holding. Aviva Links will use the funds to accelerate product development as well as grow sales and marketing for its high-speed data transmission for in-car communications. To date, the company has raised $33 million.
The multibillion-dollar car industry is undergoing a massive shift, fueled by new technologies that are allowing for quick developments in autonomous systems, telematics, and infotainment. According to KPMG, the global semiconductor shortage caused by the epidemic will reduce auto sales by $100 billion by 2021. However, once the deficit is alleviated, technology will continue to advance.
Vehicles will carry massive amounts of data, and Aviva is developing secure in-vehicle networking chips that can transmit this data at multi-gigabit speeds while fulfilling market performance, power, security, and cost demands. Aviva Links is led by David Young, who is based in San Jose, California. He stated in a statement that demand for Aviva’s technology is fast increasing as automakers develop next-generation vehicles for autonomous driving and other applications. Data must be received and evaluated in nanoseconds and with high precision in such autos. According to Young, the findings could save lives.
Sutardja and Dai spent a lifetime in the semiconductor sector and built a significant legacy at Marvell over two decades, but they were sacked from the company in 2016 when investigators discovered financial problems.
Despite this, Aviva has appointed Sutardja to its board of directors, with no mention of his tumultuous past in its press release. Sutardja, according to Young, is a visionary with an unrivalled track record of semiconductor innovation. In a statement, Sutardja added that for the future generation of self-driving automobiles, secure high-speed data communication within vehicles is vital.
Aviva’s chips are made with innovative digital communication algorithms that allow for low-latency data transmission at high speeds. Existing processors were created for the pre-self-driving period when just minimal vision functionality was necessary (think backup cameras). To actualize ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems) and infotainment capabilities, the market now needs solutions to transfer high-resolution uncompressed data for machine vision, including AI.
