Subaru taps Xilinx for key chip in driver-assistance system

Xilinx Inc and Subaru Corp on Wednesday said the Japanese automaker will use one of the Silicon Valley company's chips to power a new driver-assistance system that will let drivers go hands-free during traffic jams, among other new features. The companies said Subaru's forthcoming Levorg, a midsized hatchback vehicle, will use one of Xilinx's "Zynq" chips in a new version of its "EyeSight" driver-assistance system. The system uses two cameras to get a stereo field of view of the road and combines that data with input from radar sensors mounted around the vehicle rather than using more expensive sensors such as lidar, which uses laser light to measure the car's distance away from objects.