The full name of the original CES is the International Consumer Electronics Show, which is a grand event for technology fans every year, and the latest CES of 2022 will be held in Las Vegas as scheduled. Although it is a consumer electronics show, through the momentum of the past two years, automotive technology is gradually becoming the mainstream and explosive model of the show. More and more OEMs and technology companies will show their technical advantages and future cutting-edge concept products at this event, and even enterprises that were not related to cars before will take advantage of the momentum to show that they have not been eliminated by the times.
Of course, the three protagonists we are going to talk about today are the three semiconductor companies that exist like giants in the traditional consumer electronics field, which are Qualcomm, Nvidia and Intel.
You are familiar with Qualcomm may be because your Android phone is equipped with Qualcomm's Snapdragon chip, or the recently very popular smart cockpit chip "8155"; familiar with Nvidia may be you are a fan of console games, GeForce RTX 3080Ti and other outstanding performance graphics cards can allow you to run around in the virtual world; Intel you are not strangers, computer CPU i3/ i5 / i7 everyone knows, but today we will mention Intel's subsidiary Mobileye, This company has also been deeply involved in the field of intelligent driving chips for a long time.
How are these three giants entering the automotive sector today? And what kind of outstanding products have been launched? Let's move on.
01 Qualcomm "high friends full of seats", Snapdragon digital chassis into the focus
At the CES, Qualcomm CEO Anmont showed us the layout and achievements of Qualcomm in the automotive field, the most eye-catching thing is a partner map covered with the entire PPT, which has as many as 37 of the world's leading car brands, such as Ford, BMW, Tesla, Honda, etc., which we are familiar with, and domestic brands like Great Wall, Weilai, Geely, BYD, etc. Since so many OEMs have joined Qualcomm's circle of friends, then naturally Qualcomm has to take the shot technology and a comprehensive layout of the product line for manufacturers with different needs to choose.
This time Qualcomm brought their overall solution for smart cars - Snapdragon digital chassis.
The Snapdragon Digital Chassis consists of a complete set of open and scalable cloud connectivity platforms that leverage a unified architecture to bring greater security and immersive digital experiences, enabling next-generation vehicles to upgrade their capabilities throughout their lifecycle. Automakers can choose from any or all of the platforms covered by snapdragon digital chassis in their product lines and provide a highly customized experience for their products through continuous upgrades in the cloud. In simple terms, this digital chassis contains four functional platforms: autonomous driving, intelligent cockpit, intelligent networking and cloud services.
1. Snapdragon Ride platform
Snapdragon Ride is Qualcomm's open, programmable platform for autonomous driving, capable of meeting the needs of autonomous driving at the L2+/L3 level. Qualcomm also recently announced a number of cooperation dynamics, including helping General Motors build Cadillac LYRIQ and helping BMW build its autonomous driving platform. At the same time, Qualcomm announced at the exhibition to expand its technology portfolio to meet the changing needs of the autonomous driving field.
Qualcomm debuts the Snapdragon Ride Vision System, an open and scalable platform for autonomous driving, built on a system-on-chip (SoC) for a 4nm process designed to optimize front-view and surround-view camera deployments to support driver assistance systems (ADAS) and autonomous driving (AD). The Snapdragon Ride Vision System integrates a dedicated, high-performance Snapdragon Ride SoC and Arriver's next-generation vision perception software stack, a combination of hardware and software solutions that provide computing capabilities to enhance perception of the vehicle's surroundings, support vehicle planning and execution, and enable a safer driving experience. The system is expected to be available with vehicles in series production in 2024.
2. Snapdragon digital cockpit platform
At the CES show, Qualcomm announced its cooperation with Honda and Volvo, which is based on the cockpit domain chip.
Now in its 4th generation, the Snapdragon Digital Cockpit Platform empowers automakers to seize the opportunity to transform the in-car experience and deliver new services to create multi-display, multi-camera, advanced audio, video and multimedia experiences through highly customizable and always-connected SoC and virtualization software solutions, as well as a mixed-critical environment that securely meets the needs of consumers and security ecosystems at the same time.
Featuring a Gen 6 Qualcomm Kryo CPU, Qualcomm Hexagon processor, multi-core Qualcomm AI engine, Gen 6 Qualcomm Adreno GPU, and Qualcomm Spectra ISP, the Gen 4 platform enhances graphics, multimedia, computer vision, and AI capabilities to support context-aware, adaptive cockpit systems that evolve to the rider's preferences.
3. Snapdragon Auto Connect platform
The platform enables automakers to create powerful LTE and 5G connected services, cellular connectivity (C-V2X), Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and precision positioning capabilities to fully support secure connectivity between the car and the cloud, other vehicles, and the surrounding environment, meeting the growing demand for a safer, more immersive driving experience.
4. Snapdragon car to cloud service
Provide automakers with flexible feature combinations and performance upgrades as well as new capabilities through pre-integrated software and service platforms designed for new monetization models. As mentioned earlier, automakers can choose any or all of the platforms covered by the Snapdragon digital chassis in their product lineup and provide a highly customized experience for their products through continuous upgrades in the cloud. That is to say, car manufacturers can choose one of the module functions or all packages according to their respective needs, of course, the later stage can be upgraded in the cloud, so high flexibility has attracted the favor of a large number of manufacturers.
All in all, the Snapdragon Digital Chassis is a new platform to meet the needs of consumers and the automotive industry, providing new ideas to support the evolution of future automotive technology.
02 NVIDIA deeply cultivates the autonomous driving platform, and hyperion 8 is once again unveiled
If Qualcomm is the leader in the field of smart cockpit chips, then NVIDIA has a higher position in the field of autonomous driving chips.
At CES, NVIDIA announced that more companies will adopt its openDRIVE Hyperion platform, which includes high-performance computers and sensor architectures to meet the safety requirements of fully autonomous vehicles.
The latest generation of drive Hyperion 8 is built with redundant NVIDIA DRIVE Orin system-on-chips, 12 surround cameras, 9 radars, 12 ultrasonic modules, 1 front-facing lidar and 3 internal perception cameras.
The system has strong safety redundancy, and even in the event of a computer or sensor failure, backup equipment ensures that self-driving cars can safely take passengers to their destinations.
At present, this system has cooperated with a number of manufacturers, such as Volvo's high-end brands Polaris, Weilai, Xiaopeng, Ideal Car, R Car and Zhiji Car have adopted DRIVE Hyperion. Driverless taxi services like Cruise, Zoox and Didi, as well as truck services like Volvo, Navistar and Plus, are also adopting DRIVE Hyperion.
It is worth mentioning that two companies in China also announced during cess that they are equipped with NVIDIA Orin chips, one of which is that the first mass production model of Jidu will be equipped with NVIDIA DRIVE Orin chips. Jidu's production model is expected to be launched in 2023 and will become an automotive robot capable of L4 level autonomous driving. At the same time, the concept car of the product is expected to be officially unveiled at the Beijing Auto Show in April this year.
The other is Tucson, a self-driving truck company that announced at CES that it will build a new platform based on NVIDIA DRIVE Orin chips. Orin chip hash rate of up to 254TOPS, 7nm process, the current performance is quite outstanding.
03 Intel's Mobileye sent 3 chips in a row to blow the clarion call to fight back
There was a tone in the industry before, saying that Mobileye's hegemony is no longer there, because in recent years, many car companies have terminated cooperation with them, and turned to companies such as Qualcomm, Nvidia and Huawei, since 2016, Tesla has taken the lead in abandoning Mobileye to embark on the road of chip self-research, and the FSD chip we are familiar with is Tesla's achievement; then like the ideal ONE also changed from mobileye EyeQ4 chip to domestic horizon journey 3 chip, What is even more detrimental to Mobileye is that even BMW, a good brother who has worked together for a long time, will also invest in the Qualcomm Snapdragon Ride platform. A series of blows have given the industry a bearish attitude towards Mobileye. But at the CES show, Mobileye seems to have launched a counterattack horn, launching 3 new chips in a row, namely EyeQ Ultra, EyeQ 6L and EyeQ 6H.
EyeQ Ultra is a single-package autonomous vehicle integrated chip supercomputing platform built for end-to-end autonomous driving. The platform is based on the proven Mobileye EyeQ architecture and achieves 176 TOPS performance by optimizing computing power and performance. Equivalent to the performance of 10 EyeQ 5s combined, this marks a huge leap forward for the EyeQ family of system integration chips. With the 5nm process, the EyeQ Ultra can meet all the needs and application scenarios of L4 autonomous driving, while avoiding the additional energy consumption and cost of combining multiple system integration chips. The chip is expected to be available by the end of 2023 and fully realize vehicle-grade mass production in 2025.
The EyeQ 6L and EyeQ 6H are next-generation EyeQ system integration chips for advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS).
First of all, the EyeQ 6L is the successor to the EyeQ 4, and its package size is only 55% of the EyeQ 4. Meaning higher hash rates can be achieved with lower energy consumption, the chip features L2 level assisted driving systems. Samples were available last year and mass production is expected in mid-2023.
Another EyeQ 6H can achieve high-end ADAS and partial autopilot functions through the configuration of a full-loop view camera. In terms of force, it is equivalent to two EyeQ 5s. But more importantly, the EyeQ 6H supports visualization, supports L2+ ADAS capabilities, multi-camera processing capabilities including parking cameras, and can support third-party applications such as visual parking and driver monitoring. Samples of the most advanced ADAS system integration chip in the EyeQ family will begin this year and volume production is expected by the end of 2024.
After talking about these new products, we may wish to review the evolutionary history of Mobileye's chips:
--In September 2003, Mobileye released the EyeQ 1 chip.
The chip supports features such as Forward Collision Warning (FCW), Lane Departure Warning (LDW) and traffic sign recognition.
--In 2008, Mobileye released its second chip: EyeQ 2.
The chip adds functions such as ACC and pedestrian detection emergency braking.
--From 2014 to 2018, Mobileye successively launched EyeQ 3 and EyeQ 4, which has finally made a qualitative leap in autonomous driving for animal recognition, traffic light recognition and high-precision map-based technical support.
--In 2020, Mobileye launched the EyeQ 5 chip.
--Launched EyeQ Ultra, EyeQ 6L and EyeQ 6H in 2022.
To evaluate the performance of a chip, we have to introduce an indicator concept, that is, TOPS computing power indicators, 1TOPS represents that the chip can carry out 1 trillion operations per second, then the larger the value, the stronger the computing power, The Computing Power of EyeQ 4 is 2.5 TOPS, EyeQ 5 reaches 24 TOPS, EyeQ Ultra reaches 176 TOPS, the current Tesla FSD HW3.0 computing power is 144TOPS, and Nvidia's Orin chip has reached 254TOPS , Horizon Journey 5 reaches 128 TOPS. Black Sesame's Huashan II A1000Pro reached 196 TOPS. At present, everyone is racking their brains on how to improve computing power, but at the same time, it cannot be ignored that energy consumption is also very important, and it is somewhat irresponsible to talk about computing power aside.
Mobileye also unveiled the progress of the partnership at CES, announcing new plans for collaboration with Volkswagen, Ford and Extreme Kr around Mobileye's map, advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and autonomous vehicle technology.
It is worth mentioning the cooperation with Krypton, under the open eyeQ framework, the two parties will use six EyeQ5 system-on-chips as the hardware basis to achieve the efficient integration of krypton proprietary software technology with Mobileye True Redundancy sensing solutions, responsibility-sensitive security systems (RSS) and road network acquisition management (REM) and other technologies.
As Mobileye's self-driving strategy continues to advance, the versatility and scalability of mobileye's portfolio begins to emerge. Mobileye recently announced that EyeQ System Integration Chips (SoCs) have surpassed 100 million shipments, released mass-produced self-driving taxis, and announced that it has expanded the test scale of its self-driving cars in cities around the world, including the United States, Europe and Asia. We also look forward to Mobileye continuing to maintain a high momentum, continue to compete with Qualcomm and NVIDIA, and promote the continuous progress of the entire industry."
04 written at the end
Through this CES exhibition let us have a clear understanding of the current pattern and disputes in the field of in-vehicle chips, Qualcomm, Nvidia, Intel three giants in the continuous improvement of their own product performance, expandability and adaptability, in today's era of interconnection of everything, intelligent, any field is full of advanced technology and diversified products, smart cars are one of the quite hot ones, whether it is the intelligent cockpit inside the car or the automatic driving outside the car is an inevitable trend in the future, Of course, companies will squeeze their heads to seize this blue ocean, and we look forward to more technology companies joining this competition, especially our Chinese technology companies can have a place in the future. Whether it is as small as a chip, or as large as a perception sensor or a three-electric system. The battle in the field of automotive technology has begun, and we will wait and see how the future situation will be.