What's Up with Tech?

Edge-Ready Connectivity, No Compromises

• Evan Kirstel

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What if the most transformative leap in connectivity isn’t another wireless upgrade, but a smarter wire? We sit down with Valens Semiconductor’s Gili Friedman to explore how high‑bandwidth, zero‑latency, and EMI‑resilient links are quietly powering the systems we can’t afford to fail—cars, factories, clinics, and the collaboration rooms where work actually happens.

Gili walks us through Valens’ journey from co‑creating HDBaseT with industry giants to winning MIPI’s AFI standard for automotive. We break down why reliability and determinism matter more than ever as vehicles add cameras, consolidate compute, and demand split‑second perception. You’ll hear how Mercedes is already shipping with Valens inside, how robust DSP turns simple UTP cables into long‑reach data highways, and why avoiding compression keeps vision algorithms fast, accurate, and predictable. Then we shift to industrial and medical machine vision, where rising frame rates, harsh EMI, and real‑time control make “good enough” links a bottleneck. The takeaway is clear: when every sensor is a camera and every decision is time‑critical, strong wired connectivity unlocks safer autonomy, higher throughput, and cleaner system design.

We also touch on the business realities: navigating global supply constraints, cable costs, and ecosystem bets through standards that de‑risk adoption. Gili previews the roadmap across pro AV (hybrid work and conference rooms), automotive (next‑gen interfaces and architectures), and industrial/medical (on‑link features that move the right pixels at the right moment). If you care about automotive connectivity, machine vision, embedded vision, or DSP‑driven system design, this conversation connects the dots between theory and deployment.

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SPEAKER_01:

Hey everybody! Fascinating chat today on pushing the boundaries of connectivity everywhere, from cars to industrial plants to operating rooms with Valen semiconductor. Gilly, how are you? I'm great. How are you? Very well. Thanks for joining. Interesting topic, near and dear to my heart as I followed connectivity the last 35 years as a professional. In fact, I was at the first um MOU or or uh meeting behind Bluetooth uh up in up in Sweden and uh in in the 90s. So really interesting stuff. We've come a long way. Uh before all that, maybe introduce yourself, yeah, your journey, and um who is Valin's semiconductor?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so uh maybe uh funny enough, just an anecdote, you mentioned Bluetooth. So actually, my my uh first role in this in the high-tech industry was uh a Texas instrument in which I developed software for the Bluetooth industry. So uh um that's kind of funny. So yeah, my name is Gilly Friedman, and I'm the uh uh SPP of uh cross-industry business in Valence Semiconductor. Cross-industry business means um audio video business, uh industrial and medical uh businesses within Valence. Uh we all we also um uh we also have a part of our business is also the automotive uh business. Um so I'm here in Valence for a bit more than half a year. Uh before that I was working for 17 years for a Sony Semiconductor Israel, uh formerly uh Altel semiconductor. Um I hold a BSC in computer science. I started as a software engineer where I gained my uh my technical background that is the foundation of what I am doing today. I spent uh 17 years in the Sony semiconductor in different uh roles, started in the RD and grew up with the company uh to the role of uh global uh VP of sales and business development for this for all Sony semiconductor cellular business. Uh up until last February where uh when I uh um joined the Valence Semiconductor. Um so that's about me. Uh word about uh Valence. So uh Valence is a high performance uh connectivity company. We excel in uh in uh designing and producing a semiconductor chipset for uh uh transmitting high data rate over the longest reach with uh with the lowest error rate. So our core our core technology is in the DSP, and and uh our uh target markets are markets that need to transmit uh data over a long reach when there is uh a challenging uh infrastructure.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, super interesting. So, as as you know better than anyone, there's so many options for connectivity, whether it's you know Wi-Fi or Bluetooth or 5G and other other standards, uh other proprietary approaches. What problem did Valence set out to solve in connectivity that others were kind of overlooking?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so that that's a good question. Um, I would say that our bread and butter butter is reliability. I mean when you you cannot tolerate any latency, any um uh any uh errors on the line. And uh and this kind of uh this kind of requirement can be met only uh when using a wire. So uh our uh our uh solution is basically transmitting the data over cables uh in the most reliable and uh and high bandwidth uh of uh of data. Our original technology is the audio video, when where we established a standard together with the giant uh partners, together with the Sony uh Sony Pictures, LG, and Samsung, we established uh a standard called the HD Base D. And actually today, um this is the standard of choice for all audio video um uh uh all audio video connectivity um uh solutions. Um today you can hardly find any tier one company that uh produces uh um audio video devices that is not using the HT-ST based on the uh with the balance uh semiconductor inside. With the years and understanding the the real asset of our uh DSP technologies, we realized that uh we can uh take this further into the automotive segment, and we developed uh a technology called AFI that is uh also transmitting high data rates over very um very uh thin cables and uh um and uh and uh with immunity to EMC. And we realized that this is um uh a good uh solution and maybe the the best solution uh to transmit the um the data within the car. So AFI again uh Valence is always about uh standardization, and we realized that in order to penetrate into this market, um that has to be a standard in automotive. And I'm proud to say that um the the AFI was selected with a very tough competition, but it was selected by uh by MIPI uh as the standard for um for uh the connectivity in in uh in the vehicle in or in uh in automotive. Down we we we really realized that uh the same challenges that uh that uh transmission of data inside cars, meaning uh transmission of high data rate, very low latency, uh immunity to EMI, uh which is uh very challenging in a car, same type of um long distance, same kind type of uh challenges uh are met uh in the in the industrial world, in the machine vision and embedded vision. So we took a decision to penetrate to uh to penetrate also also to this market with the same technology, and a technology that is accepted by uh by the automotive uh industry with all automotive uh quality standards is actually a very good fit for the for the machine vision uh industry when you need to have uh when you need to have cameras connected to to a compute unit and transmit the high data rate with low with low latency into the uh compute system.

SPEAKER_01:

Wow, that that's amazing. There's a lot to unpack there. So let's start with automotive. Um you mentioned in-cabin uh sounds amazing. First, when can I get uh a car equipped with your technology? Uh and also what were you mentioned the EMC and other challenges. What were some of the trickiest, you know, challenging hurdles that you had to overcome to deploy this in a car environment?

SPEAKER_00:

So uh so actually it's uh it's easier than you think because you can you can just go outside of your office and go straight to the to the closest Mercedes uh agency and buy it by a Mercedes. And in this car, you will already have our uh uh solution uh inside. So yeah, so that's a public uh information that we are uh we are providing the connectivity inside the car for Mercedes. There are three other um uh Tier 1 uh uh um European OEMs, which I cannot disclose that already selected uh our solution for uh um for automotive. Um and uh and the the main the main reasons is that um when you uh today in a car you have you have an increasing amount of cameras around the car. And there is uh and there is a need to transmit the data from the sensor in a very reliable way into the processing units. And uh and this um and the transmission is actually the essence of uh of being uh of being able to process what the camera sees in real time into event or uh or any any other indication that you need to get in the car. Um I think that what we are focusing in this podcast is actually our understanding that these same uh characteristics are so important also for the industrial world. And I can elaborate. We see more and more uh the demand for uh for more and more cameras in production lines, which which is normally referred to as machine vision, in uh in embedded devices, embedded visions, robotic arms, forklift, everything is managed by uh sensing all over, cameras all over, that are connected to one uh processing unit. In many cases, you need to have a very high data rate because take, for example, a semiconductor um factory, they take um uh the the frame rate that uh that they need in order to get the um to get the the the right uh picture of of what happens in the production line and being and be able to um to react in real time, that's a very challenging uh um task. Now with our connectivity, we enabled the um we enable the um the processing side to get uh um all the data in real time, zero latency, zero um compression, which is also important because if you if you need to compress the data and then decompress, you lose time. So um so that actually enabled uh a very high level and high quality of uh of uh data into the processing unit that can later on evaluate and uh and process the right uh measurements out of it.

SPEAKER_01:

Amazing. Well, as a former electrical engineer, double E, I'm I'm just uh my mind spinning on this balancing act for uh performance versus theory. It's that's it's really impressive to hear. Um, you're obviously being deployed in in really uh mission-critical environments. Automotive, I see medical use cases, factory floors. I mean, how do you ensure you know trust and reliability and fidelity? You know, what's non-negotiable when it comes to your technology and and uh you know solutions?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, that that that's a good question. And that that's uh is actually the essence of our technology. Um we um we know how to um to correct the errors over the line and uh and transmit the data in a very reliable way. Well, we have we have competition in the in the market, of course, and they also have to struggle with the same challenges. But what we see and what you can you can uh see in other uh in products using uh um other technologies is that they overcome these challenges by having uh uh more expensive cables, shielding uh sometimes thick cables, um and um and actually limit or limiting the um the distance. Um our technology is actually liberating the our customers from all that because since our DSP is so strong, we are tolerating even very uh uh simple uh cables like uh uh like uh a UTP cable. And uh we it and and the and the the the overall uh system cost can be can be reduced and still be highly reliable. Um amazing.

SPEAKER_01:

So I I assume you're a fabulous semiconductor company. How do you think about staying agile and innovative, but also delivering, you know, on the supply chain side and regulation and all the market diversity and tariffs, it must be a challenge to navigate the commercial side these days as well.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so tariff is the is a is a challenge for everybody. Um actually for us as a semiconductor uh company, the challenge is not direct as uh as there is no tariff tariff on semiconductor, but still our customers uh they face uh tariffs. But this is a global, this is a global challenge for everybody. So we see all sorts of different ways uh for our customers to overcome these challenges uh by by different uh ways, uh starting from manufacturing in different places or uh or or other ways to to overcome the tariff.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, we're all having to be more creative. Um you must have an amazing innovation RD pipeline, you which you probably can't talk about, but can you give us a peek into the future and what you're excited about over the next year or two in terms of connectivity?

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, so uh um indeed uh uh balance is not uh is not standing still for a for a minute. We we uh we keep looking into the future and uh we have uh we have roadmap for uh for for for all the different markets that that we are uh playing at. Uh we have the next generation for for the audio video that uh that uh actually um um that actually uh uh will bring the the new the new uh um the the new solution for uh all the um video conference uh rooms that uh are now being uh deployed everywhere, like almost every room becomes a conference room. Um so that's on the on the video the audio video uh side. Then on the uh on the automotive uh side we also have a next generation shifts that are uh about uh to come with the additional uh interfaces. And then for uh industrial and medical, we are also penetrating into new markets that uh require uh new features like uh sizing and the and the and the other uh um uh algorithms that uh will support uh will further support this uh this industry as as we grow.

SPEAKER_01:

Wow, it's gonna be exciting to watch. And I'll be there at CES and Mobile World Congress. I assume your technology will be uh through these events, but but will you be there? Where where can people meet you and and get to know valids?

SPEAKER_00:

So yeah, we are we are planning to uh uh to have our uh our own uh um our own uh uh meeting room in uh in uh CS, in which we will also uh demonstrate our latest and greatest uh invention. And uh we will be very happy to uh uh to host uh whoever is uh interested uh to see uh what tomorrow brings in terms of uh of connectivity.

SPEAKER_01:

Fantastic. Well I'll see you there, and thanks so much for joining and sharing the vision. Very uh illuminating. Thank you so much. And thanks everyone for listening, watching, sharing the episode. And be sure to check out the TV show, techimpact.tv on Bloomberg and Fox Business. Thanks, Gilly. Thanks everyone.

SPEAKER_00:

Thank you so much.