The VLSI Society of India (VSI) officially inaugurated the 38th edition of International Conference on VLSI Design & 24th International Conference on Embedded Systems on 6 January 2025 at The Leela Palace, Bengaluru.

With the theme ‘Silicon Meets AI: Sustainable Innovations in Accelerated Computing, Secure Connectivity & Intelligent Mobility’, the inaugural ceremony got off to a great start. The ceremony was addressed by Dr Chris Miller, Professor at Tufts University and author of Chip War: The Fight for the World's Most Critical Technology, who also highlighted the major points concerning the industry in a ‘Chip-Pe-Charcha’ session which was moderated by Dr Satya Gupta, President, VSI. The event highlighted the vital role that VLSI and Embedded Systems play in advancing revolutionary developments in AI/ML, 5G, IoT, quantum computing, and electric vehicles. With over 2,700 registrants, 18 keynote speakers, 32 tutorials, 74 papers, five expert panels, 16 user design sessions, more than 50 exhibits, 13 industry forum sessions, 15 design contest finalists and more than 30 sponsors, the esteemed symposium reaffirmed its status as a premier worldwide event at VLSID 2025.

Dr Satya Gupta, President VLSI Society of India, said, “The VLSID 2025 conference is a remarkable convergence of global talent and innovation. It provides a unique opportunity to address the complex challenges of tomorrow while fostering collaboration across the semiconductor and AI ecosystems. The world is watching India making great tech strides in semiconductors. This conference puts another spotlight on India.”

Patrick Johnson, Senior Corporate Vice President, Microchip Technology and an executive chair of the VLSI Design Conference, said, “The integration of Silicon and AI has unlocked unprecedented opportunities. VLSID 2025 is the ideal platform to explore how these advancements can redefine mobility, connectivity and computing.”

Sandeep Bharathi, Chief Development Officer, Marvell Technology, said, “With the emerging semiconductor ecosystem across Design and Manufacturing, AI and ML are going to be essential to speed up learning and integrating processes to strengthen the ecosystem. AI and ML are not just disrupting the semiconductor design ecosystem – they're redefining its very fabric, empowering innovators to dream bigger and push the boundaries of what's possible. We are glad that we could provide an ideal platform at VLSID 2025 to further explore how these advancements can redefine mobility, connectivity and give rise to a new generation of technological breakthroughs.”

Hitesh Garg, Vice President and India Managing Director, NXP Semiconductors, said, “The semiconductor industry's future growth and innovation rely heavily on a robust talent pipeline and a thriving startup ecosystem. Programmes that facilitate industry-academia exchanges, provide students and young professionals with hands-on training and mentorship that can foster a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship and stay competitive in the global market. VLSID 2025 provides an excellent cross learning opportunity among industry participants, startup ecosystem and academia. It also enables students and researchers to present their ideas to industry veterans and address emerging challenges and capitalise on new opportunities.”

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Bengaluru-based design and technology services major Tata Elxsi and Japanese auto major Suzuki Motor Corporation have inaugurated the Suzuki–Tata Elxsi Cloud HIL Centre in Trivandrum, India.

The new centre is Suzuki’s first full-vehicle cloud-enabled Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) validation facility and represents the second engineering centre established under the Tata Elxsi–Suzuki partnership, following the Offshore Development Centre (ODC) in Pune.

The new facility is engineered for early-stage, full-vehicle simulation and validation through a cloud-native infrastructure. It will allow the Japanese automaker’s development and test teams to remotely access HIL infrastructure integrated with Electronic Control Units (ECUs) – reducing reliance on physical prototypes and accelerating validation cycles across R&D centres worldwide. This aligns with Suzuki’s roadmap for Software-Defined Vehicles (SDVs), reinforcing a shift toward software-led, scalable development.

Being purpose-built, the facility integrates Tata Elxsi’s domain expertise in automotive Verification and Validation (V&V), test automation and simulation, which it claims enables transformative advancements in development speed, quality and future readiness.

The Cloud HIL Centre is part of Suzuki’s global ‘SDV Right’ strategy for Electrical and Electronic (E/E) Virtual Development, which is set to play a foundational role in delivering continuous integration, faster release cycles and system reliability.

Katsuhiro Kato, Director and Executive Vice-President, Suzuki Motor Corporation, said, “The Suzuki-Tata Elxsi Cloud HIL Centre is a new base that leverages Tata Elxsi's expertise and deep experience to build an advanced and efficient development system. We hope that Suzuki will promote virtualisation to realise minimisation of energy and contribute to the development of next-generation mobility significantly."

Manoj Raghavan, CEO and Managing Director, Tata Elxsi, said, “We thank Kato-san and Suzuki Motor Corporation for their continued trust. This new Cloud HIL Centre builds on the strong foundation of our Pune ODC and marks a forward leap in our SDV-focused collaboration. It reflects our shared vision for sustainable and smarter mobility.”

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L&T Technology Services (LTTS) has launched PLxAI, a new proprietary generative AI (GenAI) framework designed to accelerate and optimise the product development life cycle for its global clients. The framework, developed by the company's in-house experts, aims to streamline the process from initial concept to post-launch support.

PLxAI leverages both generative and conventional AI to offer a comprehensive solution for developing scalable and reusable solutions across the entire product development process. It is built with a versatile architecture that makes it adaptable for both embedded systems and software development.

A key feature of PLxAI is its ability to capture and utilise existing knowledge, including an organisation's internal or 'tribal' knowledge. This helps it provide context-aware insights that enhance product engineering. The framework also integrates smart prompting and contextual intelligence to improve every stage of the process, from initial design to final validation and aftermarket support.

LTTS has already deployed over 36 use cases of PLxAI, with an additional 35 in the design phase. These applications span various stages of product development, including:

• Concept Design: Assisting with competitive analysis and technology scouting.
• Component Design: Generating specifications, diagrams and calculations.
• Validation Planning: Automatically creating Design Validation Plans and DFMEA templates.
• Failure Mode Analysis: Generating customisable FMEA documents using organisational templates.
• Digital Twin Integration: Supporting both physical and virtual testing workflows.
• Agentic Workflows: Using proactive agents to automate multi-step engineering tasks.

Alind Saxena, President & Executive Director - Mobility & Tech, L&T Technology Services, said,“This is a proud milestone for Team LTTS. The development of PLxAI by our in-house AI experts is a testimony to LTTS’ engineering and technology capabilities. It reaffirms our deep commitment toward driving global client success across Mobility, Sustainability and Tech leveraging the power of AI and Gen-AI based offerings. The enthusiasm from our global clients has been remarkable, with deployments already underway across multiple domains.”

By accelerating innovation and optimising costs, LTTS believes that PLxAI will redefine how businesses approach product development, unlocking new avenues for growth and efficiency.

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Mahindra & Mahindra, one of the leading SUV manufacturers in the country, has announced that extended its partnership with Dolby Laboratories to equip Dolby Atmos audio, to its new XUV 3XO SUV.

This move will make XUV 3X0 REVX A variant, the most affordable SUV globally at INR 1.2 million, to feature the immersive audio technology.

For the unversed, Dolby Atmos was originally developed for cinemas, which features a multidimensional sound experience that places listeners directly within the audio, revealing details with unparalleled clarity and depth.

The Dolby Atmos system is now available in the REVX A, AX5L, AX7 and AX7L variants of the XUV 3XO. Each of these models will come equipped with a six-speaker audio layout that has been meticulously tuned to the vehicle’s unique cabin architecture. The top-tier AX7L variant will further enhance the experience with an additional subwoofer for deeper bass and a truly cinematic soundscape.

R Velusamy, President of Automotive Business (Designate), Mahindra & Mahindra, stated that the introduction of Dolby Atmos in the XUV 3XO, particularly at a sub-INR 1,2 million price point, ‘redefines in-cabin audio with immersive sound for a larger group of general consumers.’

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Helm.ai, an autonomous driving AI software company, has signed a multi-year joint development agreement with Japanese auto major Honda Motor Co., to accelerate development of Honda’s next-generation self-driving capabilities, including its Navigate on Autopilot (NOA) platform.

The partnership will leverage Helm.ai’s full stack real-time AI software and large-scale autlabeling & generative simulation foundation models for development and validation. Honda will utilise it on Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) for production consumer cars.

Helm.ai on its part will provide its full suite of products geared toward highway and urban autonomy, including its perception stack (Helm.ai Vision), vision-based real-time path prediction AI (Helm.ai Driver) and generative simulation models (VidGen-2, GenSim-1, GenSim-2 and WorldGen-1). The solution is powered by Helm.ai’s Deep Teaching technology, enabling real-time AI systems and offline foundation models pre-trained on large-scale, diverse, multi-modal datasets. This the company shared, can be further adapted to meet Honda’s specifications for safe, reliable and scalable deployment.

Honda’s NOA system utilises an end-to-end (E2E) AI architecture that controls everything from environmental perception to decision-making and vehicle actuation. It is designed as a partially automated system, which currently requires constant driver attention, supporting both highway and complex urban driving.

The Japanese automaker aims to scale this E2E technology across a broader vehicle lineup and is developing a system that highly assists in operating the accelerator and steering throughout the entire route to the destination, without distinction between regular roads and highways, with mass production targeted after 2027.

Mahito Shikama, Vice-President of Software Defined Vehicle Business Supervisory Unit at Honda Motor Co, said, “This joint development supports Honda’s goal of realising safe and affordable automated driving technologies for our global customers. Through our collaboration with Helm.ai, we are advancing the development of AI technologies that enhance the real-world applicability of autonomous driving systems, bringing us closer to a future with zero traffic collision fatalities.”

Vladislav Voroninski, CEO and Founder, Helm.ai, said, “We look forward to entering the next phase of production development with Honda, as they expand their in-house efforts to deploy cutting edge autonomous driving technologies in mass market vehicles. This joint development highlights our shared vision of enabling AI-powered mobility at scale.”

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