Reliable chip products, mature software systems and perfect vehicle regulation system have created the first large-scale automatic driving chip in China.
With the rapid development of the intelligent new energy automobile industry, the automatic driving function has gradually become the standard of the new listed models, and the vehicle specification-level large computing chip will become the basis for realizing the automatic driving function. The industry generally believes that 2022 will become the first year of mass production of China's L2++ level autonomous vehicles, and it is also the first year of mass production of domestic large-scale computing chips. After several years of accumulation and rapid development, local automotive chip companies are ready to meet the test of mass production.
Recently, Shan Jizhang, founder and CEO of Black Sesame Intelligence, said at the China Electric Vehicle 100 Forum: "Large computing power SOC chips, AI computing platforms, and good image processing capabilities are the basis for the evolution of automatic driving. The Huashan No. 2 A1000 automatic driving computing chip developed by Black Sesame Intelligent has been fully mature in terms of functional safety, information security and reliability, and will achieve mass production this year to achieve L2-L3 level automatic driving functions.
Huashan No. 2 A1000 automatic driving computing chip
Step over the heavy threshold to achieve mass production
Reaching mass production of vehicle specification chips is a very arduous process, during which many thresholds need to be crossed, including creating reliable chip products, developing mature software systems and building a sound vehicle regulation system. For example, Black Sesame Intelligent's Huashan series of autonomous driving chips has experienced more than three years from product design, tape-out, packaging and testing, vehicle regulation certification and algorithm tool chain, to functional safety certification, automatic driving software package development and then to improving the support industry ecology.
Since its official release in 2020, Huashan No. 2 A1000 chip has realized the optimization and upgrading of the chip system, and all aspects have reached the requirements of stable mass production.
In terms of certification, Huashan No. 2 A1000 chip has passed AEC-Q100 Grade 2 certification and ISO26262 functional safety product ASIL B certification, and has been ready to provide PPAP related support documents to customers.
In terms of operating system, Huashan series chips have completed the porting and verification of various mainstream operating systems in the industry, including Linux, QNX, RT-Thread and Windriver.
In terms of tool chain, the Shanhai artificial intelligence development platform independently developed by Black Sesame Intelligent has excellent performance, giving full play to the advantages of the A1000 multi-dimensional neural network accelerator and achieving excellent performance of more than 4000fps on the industry's typical model network. Shanhai ARTIFICIAL intelligence development platform has more than 50 kinds of AI reference model library conversion use cases to reduce the threshold of algorithm development for customers, can realize the comprehensive optimization of QAT and post-training quantification, ensure the accuracy of algorithm models, support dynamic heterogeneous multi-core task assignment and customer custom operator development, provide friendly and easy-to-use toolchain development packages and application support, and help customers quickly transplant models and deploy integrated processes.
A very important part of the autonomous driving application is the middleware that efficiently supports the operation of the system, through two years of polishing the industry-leading autonomous driving middleware for distributed computing developed by Black Sesame Intelligent, adapting to CyberRT, DDS, SOME/IP standard protocols, supporting sensor abstraction, time synchronization, execution management, and management of various system services and software life cycle. Based on the perfect middleware provided by Black Sesame Intelligence, customers can quickly build upper-layer applications and form a framework for mass-produced autonomous driving systems.
At the same time, Black Sesame Intelligence is the earliest domestic autonomous driving chip enterprise to lay out and support AUTOSAR. After nearly a year of close cooperation with ecological partners, Huashan No. 2 A1000 series chips have been fully adapted to support Elektrobit and other basic software. This will greatly help customers using AUTOSAR save development and verification time and shorten the series production cycle.
In addition, Black Sesame Intelligent provides a large number of sample codes suitable for different autonomous driving functions and scenarios, such as GPU applications for 3D surround view rendering, algorithm applications for forward lateral fusion perception, H264/H265 codecs for driving records, fisheye perception for automatic parking, etc. Diagnostic and safety procedures are provided at the system level, supplemented by a variety of production line tools, providing maximum convenience for rapid mass production for customers in industries with different needs.
Hold a certificate to work and meet the requirements of the vehicle level
Huashan No. 2 A1000 chip is currently the largest domestic computing power, the strongest performance of the mass production of automatic driving computing chip, with high computing efficiency and complete functional units, comprehensive performance in the international market is also in a leading position, while meeting the reliability requirements of the vehicle level.
Shan Jizhang, founder and CEO of Black Sesame Intelligence, emphasized: "All the chips of Black Sesame Intelligence are designed and developed in strict accordance with the requirements of the car regulations. The most important thing about the chip 'on the car' is safety certification, and we must "hold the certificate to work'." "Black Sesame Intelligence has obtained ASPICE CL2 vehicle specification software certification, ISO 26262:2018 ASIL D functional safety process certification, ISO26262 functional safety product ASIL B certification and AEC-Q100 reliability certification, and is the first self-driving chip company in China to integrate functional safety expert certification, functional safety process certification and product certification, and build a complete and reliable vehicle certification system."
At present, huashan No. 2 A1000 chip has been put into large-scale production, began to continue to ship to industry customers, and will achieve mass production in 2022.
Promote the development of China's autonomous driving industry with self-research strength
Since its establishment in 2016, Black Sesame Intelligence has developed two major automotive-grade core IP based on independent controllable technology - NeuralIQ ISP image signal processor and high-performance deep neural network algorithm platform DynamAI NN engine, and regards this as the key to the differentiation of autonomous driving chip technology, and has released a number of Huashan series high-performance high-power autonomous driving chips.
According to the "Research on the Ecological Development Strategy of China's Intelligent Transportation Industry", it is estimated that by 2035, the ecology of the intelligent transportation industry in mainland China will be at the leading level in the world. In the field of intelligent new energy vehicles, China's auto industry is truly at the forefront of the world for the first time, and behind this is the need for the support of the local automotive industry chain to meet the growth and customization needs of domestic automakers.
As the first local enterprise to realize the mass production of domestic large-scale computing chip on the car, Shan Jizhang said that the mass production of large-scale computing power car specification chips is a long and challenging process, and Black Sesame Intelligence will continue to deepen the industry, and is committed to continuously realizing the mass production of domestic large-scale computing chips through leading technical advantages, complete product systems, open ecosystems, and flexible business models, and promoting the development of China's autonomous driving industry.