Speaker

Dieter Hoffend

Business Director Automotive Sector - imec

Biography

Dieter Hoffend is Business Director for the Automotive Sector at imec, where he leads strategic initiatives in chiplet technology and edge AI for the automotive industry. Based in Munich, he joined imec in February 2025, bringing more than 30 years of international experience in semiconductors, automotive electronics, and business leadership.

Before joining imec, Hoffend built a distinguished career at Intel Corporation. He played a pivotal role in shaping Intel’s entry into the automotive market, serving on a three-person team that launched the company’s automotive strategy in 2005. This work set the foundation for Intel’s efforts in in-vehicle infotainment, advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), and autonomous driving, and became a model for the broader semiconductor industry’s engagement with the automotive sector.

Hoffend went on to lead Intel’s automotive sales in Europe, covering IT, connectivity, and Industry 4.0 and manufacturing solutions. He managed global relationships with major automotive OEMs and Tier-1 suppliers, driving significant growth and fostering long-term strategic partnerships. His leadership also extended to high-level collaborations with IT OEMs such as Hewlett Packard, Fujitsu Siemens Computers, and MEDION AG, as well as establishing Intel’s Foundry Services Business Development organization.

Recognized for his ability to navigate complex markets and cultivate executive-level relationships, Hoffend has consistently delivered growth and innovation in highly competitive technology-based environments.

Talk(s)

11:05 AM

Driving European semiconductor leadership: A chiplet-based approach for the automotive sector

The automotive industry is transitioning from combustion engines to:

Electrified powertrains
Safe, connected and autonomous driving
Enhanced in-cabin experiences.

Advanced semiconductors are needed to support this transition in automotive applications.
The compute performance required to enable autonomous driving is increasing, as are the development costs for advanced nodes. This is in sharp contrast to the number of cars produced annually (approx. 90 million units).
Chiplets offer an opportunity to disaggregate large, monolithic semiconductor designs, making them more flexible and cost-effective. Specifically for automotive applications, most of today's semiconductors are legacy nodes that have been developed and hardened for automotive use over several decades. Integrating these semiconductors with the latest CPU and GPU technologies enables the required performance to be achieved while dealing with boundary conditions in terms of market size and specific automotive requirements.
Chiplets are already widely used in various computing applications, ranging from client devices (e.g. notebooks) to HPC platforms.
With 40 years of semiconductor R&D leadership, imec's Automotive Chiplet Program aims to reduce risk and accelerate semiconductor innovation in the automotive sector. The program will develop quality and reliability measures, drive standard interfaces between chiplets, and build reference architectures with the support of ACP partners. The aim is to develop chiplet-based reference designs that can be industrialised by the automotive ecosystem.