Dec 17 (Reuters) - Silicon Valley-based Synopsys ( SNPS )

and startup firm SiMa.ai announced on Tuesday a

partnership aimed at accelerating the development of new

artificial intelligence chips for automakers and their

suppliers.

Synopsys ( SNPS ), among leading manufacturers of chip-design

software, will collaborate with SiMa.ai, a company that has

designed energy-efficient hardware and software capable of

handling diverse AI functions used in cars. This feature is

important in electric vehicles where the car's chips compete for

battery power with the drive systems.

SiMa.ai, also based in Silicon Valley, aims to design

systems that can handle varying functions such as computer

vision technology used in driver-assistance systems that help

keep cars from veering out of their lanes to the voice

assistants that can listen for driver requests to change a radio

station.

Both tasks fall under the umbrella of AI, but the hardware

and software involved are very different. Under the new

partnership, Synopsys ( SNPS ) users will gain access to SiMa.ai's

intellectual property and Synopsys' ( SNPS ) tools for simulating how a

chip and software will interact.

That will allow automakers or their suppliers to pick the

best combination of the two for the task at hand. Synopsys ( SNPS ) and

SiMa.ai did not disclose financial terms of the deal.

"The software world is changing so much for them," said Ravi

Subramanian, head of the Synopsys ( SNPS ) product management and markets

group. "They really need to master their compute destiny."

Krishna Rangasayee, founder and CEO of SiMa.ai, said that

technologies like voice assistants are likely to be integrated

into cars within the next three years. However, these

technologies currently run on power-hungry chips in data

centers, so they need to be adapted for use in cars.

"What we have built is really a very energy efficient AI

solution that fits in the power envelope and the performance

envelope of what our customers want," Rangasayee said.