On January 5, 2022, the Global Consumer Electronics Show (CES) officially opened in Las Vegas, USA. The annual CES is not only a global consumer electronics technology bellwether, but also a forward-looking destination for future trends in the technology industry. Although affected by the epidemic, this year's exhibition is carried out in the form of a combination of online + offline, but it does not affect the enthusiasm of automotive chip manufacturers to participate in the exhibition.
Companies including NVIDIA, Qualcomm, Mobileye, NXP and others have released the latest products or solutions.
Nvidia: Graphics card squeeze toothpaste, car magnification trick?
At CES 2022, NVIDIA brought the DRIVE Concierge for AI assistants and the DRIVE Chauffeur for autonomous driving.
In terms of autonomous driving, NVIDIA released the eighth generation of the DRIVE Hyperion autonomous driving platform, which is equipped with 12 external surround cameras, 3 internal cameras, 9 millimeter wave radar, 12 ultrasonic radars and 1 lidar. The two NVIDIA DRIVE Orin chips, each with a hash rate of up to 254TOPS, can complete 25.4 billion operations per second.
The design of Orin chip redundancy can also ensure that the automatic driving is carried out normally to the destination in the event of a computer failure. The upcoming Polestar 3 will use the solutions provided by NVIDIA.
It is worth mentioning that Tusimple will also use NVIDIA DRIVE Orin to build a self-driving truck platform.
In the development of autonomous driving, marking real data is time-consuming and expensive, which is one of the pain points of development. To that end, Nvidia developed the DRIVE Sim replicator.
This is a synthetic data generator for autonomous driving development, through the simulation platform of virtual cameras, lidar and other sensors can be synthesized in multiple dimensions, such as a variety of speed, distance, occlusion and bad weather is difficult to generate truth data. This allows developers to train AI models before collecting real-world data.
In addition, Nvidia also released an interactive AI based on the DRIVE Concierge - NVIDIA Omniverse Avatar.
Omniverse Avatar combines speech AI, computer vision, natural semantic understanding, and search engines to accurately implement speech requirements. And Omniverse Avatar can also provide personalized customization for every occupant of the vehicle.
Drive Concierge is tightly integrated with DRIVE Chauffeur to provide low-latency, high-quality 360-degree 4D visualization services, such as automatic search for parking spaces and valet parking. Using the "summon" function, drive Chauffeur can drive the vehicle to its side.
Qualcomm: If nothing else, we just want xiu xiu to have many partners
Qualcomm unveiled a series of new automotive partners at CES, including components based on the company's Snapdragon processors to Honda, Volvo and Renault. At the same time, it will also reach cooperative relations with BMW, General Motors, Hyundai, Xiaopeng, India's Mahengda, Jietu, Weilai, Weima, SAIC and Jidu.
Not only that, But Microsoft will also become a strong partner for Qualcomm's future, and Cristiano Amon, CEO of Qualcomm, said: "We announce that we are developing a customized augmented reality Snapdragon chip for the next generation, energy-efficient, ultra-light AR glasses for the Microsoft ecosystem." ”
In addition, Qualcomm also brought a complete set of automotive platforms, collectively known as Qualcomm digital chassis.
These include Snapdragon Ride, which provides assisted driving and autonomous driving technology; the Snapdragon cockpit platform that provides a safer immersive in-vehicle experience with the ability to continuously upgrade features and services as needed; the Snapdragon Autoconnect platform that provides automakers with LTE, 5G, Wi-Fi and GPS solutions to enable the connection of cars to the Internet, the cloud and other vehicles; and a Snapdragon vehicle-to-cloud service for updates and fee-based services that want to open up a new monetization model.
It can be said that from software to hardware, from interconnection to cockpit, Qualcomm provides an open and scalable car platform that can provide automakers with a variety of tools to make cars more intelligent and connected.
These functions will also be gradually applied in advance in car companies that have reached cooperation agreements with Qualcomm, such as Polestar and Volvo will be equipped with a new infotainment system, of which Polestar 3 will take the lead in "early adopter"; in addition, Honda will be equipped with an infotainment platform from Qualcomm on future models; Renault will rely on the Snapdragon platform to equip its next generation of cars with the latest connected intelligent solutions.
I can only say: many friends is good.
The relationship between Mobileye and Extreme Kr turned out to be so "hard"?
As CES 2022 kicked off, the industry suddenly realized that the cooperation between Extreme Kr and Intel subsidiary Mobileye had just begun.
Mobileye CEO Amnon Shashua announced at Intel's home venue that an extreme Krypton electric vehicle with L4 level self-driving capabilities will be officially launched as early as 2024.
The two companies reached a partnership in August last year to develop advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS). It is reported that the Krypton 001 model uses Mobileye's latest generation SuperVision system.
The rapid partnership between Pole Krypton, which was not long established, surprised the industry, but what was even more surprising was that the partnership between the two companies progressed so quickly.
From the disclosed information, it is understood that the cooperative model will be driven by Mobileye Drive, equipped with 6 EyeQ5 system chips, and surrounded by cameras to achieve a higher level of automatic driving functions.
It is worth noting that at this online conference, Amnon Shashua introduced three cooperative car companies, namely Ford, Volkswagen, and Geely's Extreme Kr.
Among them, Mobileye's long-term relationship with Ford will be further deepened into a strategic cooperation, and Mobielye's road information management (REM) mapping technology will be added to future versions of Ford's BlueCruise system. The Volkswagen Group will use Mobileye's crowdsourced mapping technology to improve the comfort of ADAS functions in Volkswagen, Skoda and SEAT brand cars.
Compared with the previous two international manufacturers, it is obvious that mobileye's partnership with Extreme Kr is deeper.
In addition to the official announcement of the cooperation project, Mobileye also released an eyeQ Ultra, a supercomputing platform designed for end-to-end autonomous driving.
According to reports, EyeQ Ultra adopts a 5-nanometer process, and the performance is equivalent to the sum of the performance of 10 EyeQ 5 pieces, which can meet all the needs and application scenarios of L4 automatic driving. The chip is expected to be available at the end of 2023 and fully realize vehicle-grade mass production in 2025.
I don't know, will the new krypton model have a chance to hitch a ride on the EyeQ Ultra?
Boosting the number of fully autonomous driving! NXP then pushes the 4D imaging radar processor
CES 2022 grand opening, semiconductor chip companies have released "big moves".
Dutch automotive semiconductor supplier NXP Semiconductors announced on January 5 that the industry's first imaging radar processor S32R45 with a 16nm process has gone into mass production, while the new S32R41 is tailored for L2 and above autonomous driving functions.
The S32R45 is the flagship of NXP's 6th generation automotive radar chipset. According to its official introduction, compared with other products, the S32R45 has stronger recognition, enhancing the perception and understanding of the complex environment of the city, and providing short, medium and long-range three-in-one multi-mode radar sensing.
The new S32R41 is the industry's first 16nm radar processor designed specifically for L2+ autonomous driving applications. With the transition from L2+ to L5 in the automotive autonomous driving level, with the blessing of the S32R41, NXP's 4D imaging radar is expected to cover more models.
NXP pointed out that L2+ scenes that cannot be properly handled by traditional high-resolution sensors can be solved by 4D imaging radar chips from up to 6 angles and 360 degrees of surround distribution. The automotive radar portfolio, combined with the NXP TEF82xx RFCMOS transceiver, provides automakers with the higher angular resolution, processing power, and application range they need.
In addition, NXP will exhibit its radar technology achievements for CubTEK, a radar platform supplier in Taiwan.
NXP also announced that it will host NXP Image Radar Technology Day on February 23-24.