NXP Semiconductors

NXP Semiconductors, headquartered on the High Tech Campus in Eindhoven, makes semiconductors that enable secure connections and infrastructure for a smarter world. It employs about 32,000 people in more than 30 countries and celebrates its twentieth year in 2026. More than half of its business comes from the automotive market.

NXP sees three forces reshaping that market: automated driving with the aim of zero accidents, zero emissions through electrification, and the car as a securely connected part of a larger system that includes cloud services.

NXP joined NEON for the safety side of the transition. Fully automated driving in everyday conditions may take a long time to arrive, but the technology developed for it can already make cars safer. NXP's idea was an autonomous safety shell around the car: a system that anticipates the behaviour of other road users and the conditions around it, and acts within the limits of the vehicle to prevent accidents or reduce their impact.

NEON's work package on the safety envelope of automated vehicles, led by Emilia Silvas with Gijs Dubbelman at Eindhoven University of Technology, worked on two pieces of that shell: interpreting and fusing sensor data for anticipatory safety, and modelling the world and planning motion for an electric vehicle. NXP offered its safety-net architecture, processors, hardware and software, and expected the research to help set the requirements for its own system-safety solutions.