NXP Semiconductors's new BlueBox Engine is intended to speed up the production of self-driving cars.

BlueBox combines NXP's S32V automotive vision processor and its LS2088A embedded compute processor for a platform designed to help carmakers build autonomous vehicles.

"In autonomous vehicles systems, multiple streams of sensor data are routed to the BlueBox engine, where they are fused to create a complete 360-degree world model around the vehicle," the company said in a statement. "This functionality greatly improves car safety by both managing and preventing emergency situations."

NXP says "four of the top five largest carmakers in the world" are using the BlueBox engine for their autonomous vehicle efforts. The company added that it has decided to make BlueBox an open platform so "automotive manufacturers can easily customize to their needs for optimal product differentiation."

NXP wants its technology in autonomous cars by 2020, when the first self-driving cars are expected to hit the road.

The move comes after rival Nvidia last year unveiled its Drive PX platform at CES, which leverages the power of the Tegra X1 platform to improve natural learning and object recognition for self-driving car systems. Instead of separate radar, ultrasound, and cameras, Nvidia believes its Drive PX system can use less expensive and more accurate cameras and algorithms to achieve even more impressive results.

NXP, however, tells IEEE Spectrum that Nvidia uses "intermediate processors, and that's not the way people do it today, not how they bundle options on cars."

NXP last year acquired chip maker Freescale, which last year said it's aiming for nothing less than helping to create the auto industry's first "crash-less car."