Polyn advances tire-road grip chip with ‘tapeout’ milestone

London – UK semiconductor company Polyn Technology has completed the ‘tapeout’ - finalistion of design - of its tire vibration monitoring chip, which is claimed to estimate road grip in real time.

The VibroSense solution, which uses ‘neuromorphic analog signal processing’ (NASP) to analyse tire vibration, is intended to help vehicle systems respond before braking or loss-of-control events occur.

The chip has been developed in cooperation with GlobalFoundries and is Polyn’s first product built using advanced semiconductor process nodes, said Polyn 29 April.

According to Polyn, the system uses neural networks to process high-frequency accelerometer vibration data from the tire and estimate the peak friction coefficient (PFC) under varying road conditions.

The company said validation in controlled braking tests and comparisons with industry benchmarks showed “strong alignment with real-world friction behaviour” on surfaces including asphalt, concrete and aquaplaning conditions.

The solution is designed to work alongside a tire pressure monitoring system (TPMS) system-on-chip, using vibration signals to monitor tire-road grip.

“There is strong and growing interest in sensor data pre-processing implemented in silicon for automotive applications,” said Polyn CEO Aleksandr Timofeev.

The design completion, said Timofeev, “marks an important milestone in NASP chip development and furthers our mission to unlock new opportunities for advanced vehicle systems.”

Polyn said its NASP architecture uses analog neurons operating in asynchronous mode, which reduces power consumption and inference latency.

According to the company, this enables deployment of the VibroSense chip within the tire itself, offering direct road sensing rather than indirect calculations or virtual sensors.

Timofeev said Polyn was working with Tier 1 suppliers and vehicle manufacturers seeking real-time tire-road friction estimates directly from the tire.