Toronto-based Tenstorrent Inc. and LG Electronics Inc. (LG) announced the companies are collaborating to produce new AI and video codec chiplets. 

LG and Tenstorrent made the announcement in a news release Tuesday, where the technology could be used to power LG’s TV and automotive products as well as Tenstorrent’s data centre products. 

“It is increasingly important for industry leaders to own their silicon future," Jim Keller, the chief executive officer of Tenstorrent, said in the release. 

"LG is a giant in our industry, and this collaboration will strengthen their portfolio of technologies for their future chip solutions, providing greater flexibility to differentiate their products."

Byoung-hoon Kim, the chief technology officer at LG, said in the release the two companies will share technology. 

"Chiplets will be tested through this collaboration to see whether they can become a technology platform of collaboration,” said Kim. 

CHIPLETS

Bob Grim, the vice-president of communications at Tenstorrent, said in an interview with BNNBloomberg.ca Tuesday that the idea of chiplet technology is not new, but is something the market is increasingly interested in. 

He said the chiplets are smaller, module computer chips that are best conceptualized “like Legos,” where different parts can be added based on need. 

“You just kind of Lego these things together and ultimately, they call it chiplet technology. But the idea is you can make a chip pretty quickly doing it that way because you don't have to design it all from scratch. You use pieces of IP [intellectual property] and put it together to form a chip,” Grim said.