A camera-based driver-assistance system is, at its core, a chip running computer-vision software in real time. For a large share of the industry, that chip is Mobileye's EyeQ. What is less obvious is that Mobileye, the company most associated with the silicon, does not actually fabricate it. Understanding why matters for anyone trying to reason about the resilience of ADAS supply.
Mobileye's own annual report lays out the chain. In its Form 10-K filed February 12, 2026 (for the fiscal year ended December 27, 2025), the company explains that "STMicroelectronics depends on TSMC as its subcontractor to manufacture our EyeQ SoCs, particularly our EyeQ5 and EyeQ" parts. Prior filings add that Mobileye "design[s] the front-end" while STMicroelectronics handles the back-end design and supply. Read the primary filing on sec.gov; it was located via EdgarBeast.
So there are three links. Mobileye owns the architecture and the computer-vision design that makes the chip valuable. STMicroelectronics is the long-standing partner that co-designs and supplies the part. And TSMC — the same Taiwanese foundry that anchors much of the global semiconductor industry — physically manufactures the wafers. Each link is a point of leverage and a point of fragility.
This is a useful template for thinking about automotive silicon generally. A "chip company" in cars is often really a design company sitting atop a shared foundry base. That structure keeps capital costs down and lets the design firm focus on what differentiates it — but it also means that geopolitical or capacity shocks at a single foundry ripple through to features as concrete as automatic emergency braking and lane centering.
None of this is hidden; it is disclosed precisely because it is a risk the company wants investors to weigh. The lesson for the rest of us is that when you read "our EyeQ chip," the possessive is about design, not manufacturing. The deeper you go into the ADAS stack, the more it converges on the same handful of foundries everyone else depends on too.