Waymo says custom chip handles robotaxi sensor processing

Waymo said Thursday it has built a 5nm application-specific chip for front-end processing of camera, radar and lidar data in its robotaxis. The company said the ASIC delivers more than 1,000 TOPS for sensor processing and machine-learning models, while two independent engines provide redundancy if one fails. Waymo said its latest system can process 13 high-resolution cameras in real time and is designed to turn sensor input into driving decisions within milliseconds. The custom silicon remains part of a stack that includes third-party CPUs, GPUs and accelerators.