Use Cases
Custom silicon and tailored system‑on‑chip (SoC) designs can unlock significant value across many industries and application domains.
Autonomous‑Vehicle Perception Engine
- What the customer builds: An on‑board perception processor that fuses LiDAR, radar, and camera streams and runs a YOLO‑v8 object‑detection model at 120 fps.
- Why custom silicon:
- Integrated multi‑modal AI accelerator + safety‑monitored Cortex‑M core → sub‑10 ms end‑to‑end latency, < 5 W power.
- Meets ISO 26262 ASIL‑D functional‑safety requirements (hard‑wired watchdog, lockstep cores).
Wearable Continuous‑Glucose Monitor (CGM)
- What the customer builds: A skin‑adhesive patch that measures interstitial glucose, processes the signal, encrypts the data, and transmits via BLE.
- Why custom silicon:
- Ultra‑low‑power analog front‑end + on‑die DSP for filtering → < 30 µW active consumption.
- Secure element integrated for HIPAA‑grade encryption, eliminating an external MCU.
Data‑Center AI Inference Accelerator
- What the customer builds: A rack‑mount inference card that serves transformer‑based language‑model queries for a SaaS chatbot.
- Why custom silicon:
- Systolic‑array matrix engine delivering 250 TOPS/W, 40 % lower TCO vs. GPU‑based servers.
- Built‑in TLS‑offload and secure key vault, removing separate network‑security appliances.
5G Small‑Cell Baseband Processor
- What the customer builds: A compact indoor small cell that supports sub‑6 GHz and mmWave bands, handling beamforming and carrier aggregation.
- Why custom silicon:
- Integrated RF front‑end + baseband DSP on a single die → < 10 mm² footprint, 20 % lower BOM cost.
- Deterministic processing guarantees < 1 ms scheduling latency for URLLC (ultra‑reliable low‑latency communication).
Premium Smartphone AI Camera Pipeline
- What the customer builds: A flagship phone camera that does on‑device HDR‑plus, night‑mode, and real‑time portrait segmentation without sending data to the cloud.
- Why custom silicon:
- Dedicated ISP + AI NPU (8 TOPS) on the same SoC → 3× faster RAW‑to‑JPEG pipeline, < 200 ms total capture‑to‑share time.
- Power‑gating of NPU when idle saves > 30 % battery versus a CPU‑only solution.
Secure Edge Router with On‑Chip Encryption
- What the customer builds: An industrial edge router that terminates TLS, performs DPI, and enforces zero‑trust policies for a factory floor.
- Why custom silicon:
- On‑die AES‑256/GCM engine + post‑quantum KEM accelerator → > 10 Gbps encrypted throughput with < 5 ns per packet latency.
- Hardened boot and tamper‑detect logic meet IEC 62443 security class 4.
How Customers Typically Approach a Custom‑Silicon Project [MATCH THIS WITH WHAT WE CAN OFFER AT MOTIUS AND HOW WE PLAY A KEY ROLE HERE]
- Define the Value Proposition – Identify the metric that matters most (e.g., power per inference, latency, cost per unit, security level).
- Benchmark Off‑The‑Shelf Alternatives – Quantify the gap between existing components and the target metric.
- Select an Architecture Partner – Choose a foundry/ASIC design house that offers the required process node, IP libraries, and design‑for‑test capabilities.
- Co‑Design IP Blocks – Work with the partner to create or adapt cores (AI acelerator, DSP, RF front‑end, secure enclave) that meet the spec.
- Prototype & Validate – Fabricate engineering samples, run silicon validation, and iterate on firmware/software stacks.
- Scale to Volume – Optimize for yield, test coverage, and supply‑chain logistics before mass production.