NXP Semiconductors (NXP) has announced a definitive agreement to acquire Kinara, a maker of neural processing units (NPUs) for edge artificial intelligence (AI) applications, in an all-cash transaction valued at USD 307 million. The acquisition is expected to close in the first half of 2025, pending regulatory approvals, the Dutch chipmaker said on Monday.
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Kinara's NPUs Enhance AI Performance
Kinara offers NPUs and comprehensive software enablement that deliver energy-efficient AI performance across a range of neural networks, including conventional AI, as well as generative AI, to address the rapidly growing AI needs of industrial and automotive markets.
Benefits of the Acquisition for NXP
NXP said the acquisition will enhance and strengthen its ability to provide complete and scalable AI platforms, from TinyML to generative AI, by bringing discrete NPUs and robust AI software to NXP's portfolio of processors, connectivity, security, and advanced analog solutions.
"As existing partners, Kinara and NXP make it easy to pair Kinara's NPUs with NXP's industry-leading portfolio of industrial and IoT processors. Together, the companies will create tighter integration of solutions to deliver scalable AI platforms for a variety of industrial and automotive AI inference needs," the companies said in a joint statement.
Kinara's NPUs
Kinara's discrete NPUs, including the Ara-1 and the Ara-2, support emerging AI applications in vision, voice, gesture, and a variety of other generative AI-powered multi-modal implementations. Both devices feature an architecture that enables mapping of the inference graphs for execution on Kinara's programmable proprietary neural processing units for maximizing edge AI performance.
Integration of Kinara's AI Software
Ara-1 is the first generation discrete NPU, capable of advanced AI inferencing at the edge. Ara-2, capable of up to 40 TOPS (Tera Operations Per Second), the second generation NPU, is optimised for achieving system-level high performance for generative AI. The Ara-1 and Ara-2 NPUs can be easily integrated with embedded systems to enhance their AI capabilities.
Kinara's AI software portfolio, which includes extensive model libraries and model optimisation tools, will be integrated into NXP's eIQ AI/ML software development environment to enable customers to quickly and easily create end-to-end AI systems.
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"The industrial market is going through a transformation, with new innovations like generative AI helping to deliver major improvements in efficiency, sustainability, safety and predictability, and in many instances, unlock new use cases and functionality," said Rafael Sotomayor, executive vice president and general manager, Secure Connected Edge at NXP. "Adding Kinara's AI capabilities to our broad intelligent edge portfolio creates a scalable platform for new classes of AI-powered systems. Together, we can help our customers simplify complexity and accelerate time to market as they create transformative AI systems."
