SAN FRANCISCO, Oct 10 (Reuters) - German industrial

giant Bosch will collaborate with U.S. chip startup Tenstorrent

to develop a platform for standardizing the building blocks of

automotive chips, Tenstorrent executives said.

The plans include developing a standard method to use a

building block of modern chips, called chiplets, to create

systems that can power vehicles with significantly different

needs, Tenstorrent chief customer officer David Bennett said in

an interview.

By combining different quantities and types of chiplets to

form complete processors, the two companies aim to reduce costs

and increase the speed of bringing new silicon products to the

automotive industry.

"(Bosch is) collaborating with us to essentially redefine

how automakers look at silicon - purchasing silicon and building

silicon," Bennett said.

Hastened by the introduction of electric vehicles, autos

have increasingly become products that resemble large computer

systems that operate via a battery on four wheels.

The technical complexity of introducing electrification

and automated driving systems has pushed vehicle makers to

pursue new avenues to build or buy the necessary chips.

Chip giants such as Nvidia ( NVDA ), Qualcomm ( QCOM ) and

the Intel ( INTC )-owned Mobileye produce a range of

driver assistance chips and associated software.

The idea behind the collaboration with Bosch is that

standardizing the technical requirements around the chiplet

building blocks could lower prices, Bennett said.

Producing a large volume of a standard chiplet that could be

added or removed as needed for each application would save cash.

Automakers would also be afforded more customization options for

each design, versus buying off-the-shelf parts, Tenstorrent

automotive vice president Thaddeus Fortenberry said.

The collaboration does not yet include any specific products

or sales to automakers.

Tenstorrent is helmed by Jim Keller, who headed Tesla's

efforts to design a chip for autonomous driving. Keller has

designed chips for AMD and Apple, among others.

(Max A. Cherney in San Francisco; Editing by Varun H K)