Microcontroller unit (MCU) fabless company ABOV Semiconductor will expand into edge artificial intelligence (AI) for growth going forward, the company said.
Company vice president Jae C. Son said it will create solutions optimized for the edge AI computing era, at an online forum held by Sungkyunkwan University.
ABOV was focusing on smart MCU __ MCU with basic learning function added to them __ as its new growth engine and securing cutting edge technology in the sector, people familiar with the matter said.
Son was formerly a senior vice president at Samsung’s semiconductor business and was the development manager for Ultra SPARC at Sun Microsystems. He joined ABOV earlier this year and is the head director of development.
Edge AI is seeing more applications in diverse areas. It is being applied to smart home appliances in recent years. Data collected from sensors won’t rely on cloud and will processes them within the edge.
Sensors that detect freshness of goods in refrigerators, cloth detection in washing machines and voice recognition in speakers usually have edge AI applied. It can also be applied to smart earphones or glasses.
ABOV supplies its MCU to Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics and WINIA Electronics in South Korea. It also supplies them to Chinese, Japanese and European companies.
Last year, the company posted 126.8 billion won in sales, an increase of 15.7% from 2018.
The company posted 64.47 billion won in sales in the first half of 2020.
ABOV is planning to expand into industrial and automotive MCU in addition to its current focus of home appliance and mobile.
It developed four new MCU this year. A96L523 and AL1113 are for smoke detection. There is also the 32-bit motor A33M116 and 8-bit touch A96T418.
