Intel Acquires Yogitech for IoT Functional Safety

By Ken Caviasca, Intel

April 6, 2016 -- Today, functional safety (including Advanced Driver Assistance Systems or ADAS) is used to enhance the safety of transportation and factory systems. One of the fastest-growing segments in automotive electronics, ADAS makes features like assisted parking possible and paves the way for fully autonomous vehicles in the not-so-distant future. As IT systems increasingly merge with operational systems in buildings, factories, vehicles (and more), functional safety is becoming important for a wide range of Internet of Things (IoT) market opportunities. By Intel’s own estimates, 30 percent of the IoT market segment will require functional safety by 2020.

That’s why today, we’re announcing that Intel is acquiring YOGITECH S.p.A., an expert in semiconductor functional safety and related standards. The talented YOGITECH team, based in Italy, will soon join Intel’s Internet of Things Group. This acquisition furthers our efforts to win in ADAS, robotics and autonomous machines for market segments like automotive, industrial and other IoT systems that require functional safety and high performance.

For years, Intel has been providing high-performance IoT systems that allow people and businesses to make better-informed decisions. The industry is now moving from automating data to inform better decisions, to automating actions informed by real-time data. You can see this evolution in the autonomous vehicle prototypes that nearly all have Intel inside. Functional safety is a requirement for these and other IoT customers. We see the combination of high performance and functional safety as a natural evolution of Intel’s IoT platform and strategy.

We’re excited to welcome the YOGITECH team to Intel. While we’re not ready to share product roadmap details yet, this team and technology will take our autonomous systems efforts to the next level.

Ken Caviasca is vice president and general manager of platform engineering and development in the Internet of Things (IoT) Group at Intel Corporation.