It is the consensus of the industry that the automotive market is in a white-hot competitive stage. The resulting state is that the involution caused by the vehicle enterprises has swept to the entire upstream and downstream industry chain.
In the field of electronic and electrical architecture, a trend is the convergence of the cockpit and the cockpit, that is, the unification of the driving domain and the cockpit domain into the central computing platform unit, which fully connects the software, hardware and application layers.
At present, the competition in the field of cockpit integration has begun, and many companies have entered the game. Among them, as a software platform provider based on the market for 16 years, Thundersoft has formed an integration of software and hardware in the past two years with its core software capabilities, and has recently made a breakthrough in the field of cockpit integration.
On April 24, during the Beijing Auto Show, Thundersoft brought the "Drip OS" vehicle operating system, showing three products: intelligent cabin version, intelligent driving version, and cabin driving integration version, and integrating the end-side AI large model, further enriching the human-computer interaction ecology. The system has achieved all-round leadership from the cockpit to the intelligent driving OS products.
At the moment when the market is so involuted, "there is a strong ecological layout, and we understand both software and hardware, and there will definitely be more powerful development space." Some industry insiders analyzed.
Image source: Thunderda
Why do drip OS?
In November last year, Thundersoft released the "Drip OS" brand. Five months later, Drip OS brought the vehicle operating system. This operating system not only realizes the integration of cabins and drivers, but also enables the coexistence of diversified architectures.
The operating system is the result of Thundertech's integration of software and hardware. Thundersoft has insight into the market development trend and is the first to enter the cabin-driver integration track. According to the report of Gasgoo Automotive Research Institute, after the upgrade of the automotive electronic and electrical architecture, the hardware will move towards centralization, and the software will move towards hierarchical decoupling.
Image source: Gasgoo
Geng Zengzeng, co-founder of Thunderda, believes that the development of EE architecture will not be one architecture that goes all over the world, but the coexistence of multiple architectures, showing two characteristics: "getting better" and "becoming more flexible". Drip OS anchors three major goals: one is to lower the threshold for car companies to move towards a central computing platform, the second is to become a native device-side large model, and the third is to develop along the main line of domestic and foreign dual ecosystems.
With a clear direction, Thundersoft has launched the drip OS vehicle operating system for central computing. The system supports multi-domain and cross-domain integration, and integrates technical capabilities such as AI large models, basic software, and SDV middleware. The system has been tested in real vehicles and is waiting for mass production. At the booth, Thundersoft exhibited a vehicle equipped with a single-chip cabin and driving integrated operating system.
According to reports, the drip OS system has the characteristics of full openness, full link, and globalization.
In order to meet the diversified and personalized needs of customers, Drip OS adopts a flexible Lego-like architecture and can support a variety of mainstream chip solutions. To put it bluntly, the drip OS system can basically provide what the customer wants.
Image source: Gasgoo
Full link refers to the link that breaks the traditional APP opening and programmatic and realizes the link of the whole scene and ecological application. For example, the integration of the large model Rubik into Drip OS can bring an immersive experience. Therefore, in Thundertech Drip OS operating system, the UIUE display has been upgraded to event-triggered.
In order to help Chinese brands go global, Thundersoft will integrate global mainstream ecological applications. Chang Hengsheng, CEO of Thundertech, said, "We will not make a closed OS, and hope to jointly develop it with top manufacturers in the industry, and even open source it to mainstream customers." It can be seen that Drip OS implements the service concept of openness and win-win.
What are the advantages of the three products?
During the Beijing Auto Show, "cabin and driver integration" is one of the focuses of the intelligent trend. Among them, Thundersoft drip OS system has attracted much attention.
The Drip OS system has achieved the coexistence of multiple architectures, including four products: cabin version, cabin version, intelligent cabin version, and intelligent driving version, and can also support a variety of chip and system combinations. With such flexibility and high adaptability, it can meet the different application scenarios and business needs of different customers.
Image source: Thunderda
At this press conference, Drip OS showcased three products: the intelligent cabin version, the intelligent driving version and the cabin and driving integration version. All three products are compatible with multi-chip and multi-system combinations, with high modularity and high versatility.
First of all, let's take a look at the Drip OS smart cabin version solution, which is based on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8255 chip platform, and is currently the Pre1.0 version. The solution shortens the prototyping development time from 6 months to 2 months, and the mass production development cycle from 12 months to 8 months. This solution has the advantages of modular design and high commonality, and can achieve a high degree of reuse of components of different vehicle models, as well as cross-vehicle cross-vehicle commonality.
Looking at the Drip OS intelligent driving version, it uses Qualcomm Ride SA8650 chip, integrates AVM, DMS, maps and other functions, in addition to ensuring safety and parking, and improves the comfort experience. It is reported that this version has a total of 29 ADAS functions, such as memory parking.
Based on the Qualcomm Ride SA8775 chip, the Drip OS Cabin Driver Fusion Edition can improve vehicle performance, safety, multi-modal intelligent interaction and driving experience through a high degree of collaborative optimization of software and hardware. At the same time, this solution reduces the hardware investment at the domain controller and chip level, simplifies the EE architecture and the number of wiring harnesses, and reduces the hardware, software integration and maintenance costs.
Image source: Thunderda
Behind the drip OS system, there is the figure of Changxing Intelligent Driving, a subsidiary of Thunderda. Based on Qualcomm series chips, Changxing Intelligent Driving has independently developed the RazorDCX autonomous driving domain controller series products. Among them, for the Qualcomm SA8620 chip, Changxing Intelligent Driving has launched the Congo autonomous driving domain controller, which has a high cost performance. At the same time, RazorDCX Tarkine, a single-SOC cockpit fusion domain control solution based on Changxing Intelligent Driving, has been verified by real vehicles.
Analysts from Gasgoo Automotive Research Institute pointed out that the drip OS system represents the current mainstream software and hardware operating system supporting scheme.
Drip OS's global thinking
The Drip OS architecture can be highly flexible and adaptable, and it is also based on the "globalization" thinking that Thundersoft is built. Chang Hengsheng said, "Drip OS is born international, and adopts the international mainstream architecture and technology. "This is the advantage of Drip OS that differentiates itself from other competitors.
As the world's leading provider of intelligent operating system products and technologies, Thundersoft has extensive experience in software services.
Data shows that Thundertech's software products have been used in more than 50 million vehicles around the world. Since 2016, Thundersoft has successively acquired a number of companies such as Prosynsys, Huichi Technology, RIGHTWARE, MM Solutions, etc., forming core technical barriers. "Developing (OS) in a leading market is our advantage. ”
Image source: Thunderda
At the same time, Thundersoft has reached cooperation with many mainstream chip manufacturers, cloud service providers and ecological application enterprises at home and abroad, raising the ecological barrier of "chip/cloud + operating system". In the field of vehicles, most of the vehicle companies except Tesla have cooperative relations with Thunderda. Among them, Volkswagen, Geely, JAC and others have established joint ventures with it.
With years of experience in cooperation with mainstream chip manufacturers and vehicle companies, Chang Hengsheng believes that the Drip OS architecture is "complementary to the self-developed operating system of car companies" and can provide customers with general operating system solutions. This helps to significantly reduce the cost of OEMs and speed up the mass production and onboarding of operating systems. In the face of overseas markets, Thundersoft has also launched "intelligent manufacturing to go overseas" solutions for different categories.
With the blessing of Thunderda, the Drip OS system integrates the superior technologies of domestic and foreign partners. It is reported that the drip OS system has built ecological cooperative relations with dozens of overseas enterprises, including Amazon, HERE, AWS and other leading enterprises, integrating mainstream applications such as navigation, voice recognition, and online audio.
Drip OS integrates overseas operating system solutions in advance to build a domestic and international dual ecology, which can help Chinese brands accelerate their overseas expansion.
As we all know, Chinese brands are in a critical period of going overseas. Last year, China surpassed Japan as the world's largest exporter of automobiles. According to data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, from January to March this year, mainland exported 1.324 million vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 33.2%. However, compared with multinational car companies with a high degree of globalization such as Volkswagen and Toyota, mainland car companies are still in the initial stage of going overseas and face many complex challenges, such as operating system localization and data compliance services.
Image source: Gasgoo
"Car companies have a very strong demand to go overseas, and the headache is the integration of overseas ecosystems," Geng said. Drip OS vehicle operating system will help car companies realize the global ecological construction from system to application.
Chang Hengsheng said, "We hope to integrate the world's mainstream ecological applications to help Chinese brands go overseas and improve the speed of going overseas." ”
From the release of the Drip OS brand to the debut of three cabin products, it took only 5 months for Thundersoft to be launched. This is due to Thundertech's rapid capture of changes in customer needs, keen insight into market development direction, and adherence to the "globalization" mindset, which enables its performance to achieve continuous growth, and the global cooperation ecosystem continues to expand, increasing the bargaining chips for survival and victory in the white-hot competitive environment.