"We have been thinking about what kind of value MediaTek can bring to the industry", "If there is no value, we will not be able to show our competitiveness for a long time." You Renjie, senior deputy general manager of MediaTek and general manager of the Metaverse Business Group of Computing Unicom, said.
On the one hand, Lei Jun and Zhou Hongyi at the auto show have become the focus of the stars, and on the other hand, the low-key MediaTek has released a new cockpit chip, including CT-X1 using 3nm process and CT-Y1 and CT-Y0 using 4nm process.
Image source: MediaTek
In the context of the rapid development of the intelligent industry, more and more car companies have put forward the concept of large-scale models on the car, and gradually realized the application in the car end. Among them, Jiyue, which is backed by Baidu, has realized the large-scale model on the car, and Nezha L will realize the large-scale model on the car through OTA in June.
Just like the theme of the Beijing Auto Show, "New Era, New Cars", the degree of intelligence of automobiles is getting higher and higher, and a new era of intelligent travel has quietly opened.
However, the combination of automobiles and intelligence is not smooth sailing, just like the current large model in full swing on the car, subject to the performance limitations of automotive chips, car companies have achieved the corresponding functions by streamlining the large model or calling the cloud large model, it is obvious that the simplified large model will be limited in function, and the call of the cloud large model is too dependent on the communication network, which will greatly reduce the consumer's car experience.
Image source: MediaTek
In order to solve such an industry problem, MediaTek has launched CT-X1, CT-Y1 and CT-Y0 three cockpit chips, and has been designated by more than 6 leading car companies, among which the new models equipped with 4nm process will achieve SOP in May and June, in order to support AI large models that are much higher than the industry level and up to 7 billion parameters (3nm supports 13 billion), which means that the automotive industry is about to open the era of end-side large models.
Product information: The Dimensity automotive cockpit platform integrates the Armv9 architecture and supports advanced device-side generative AI technology. Among them, the CT-X1 with 3nm process supports AI large language models with 13 billion parameters and multimodal generative AI models, which can generate AI images in less than 1 second, and the CT-Y1 and CT-Y0 with 4nm process support AI large language models with 7 billion parameters, which can also generate AI images within 1 second.
The industrial value of the strongest cockpit chip
The device-side model is a hot new concept in the field of consumer electronics. In the context of ChatGPT, Sora and other large models refreshing people's cognition round after round, almost all hardware manufacturers agree that AI is the next industry flashpoint. To this end, mobile phone manufacturers such as OPPO and Honor have released their own large-scale model products to strengthen their competitiveness.
As a leader in the field of mobile phone chips, MediaTek has already started the layout of the AI field and extended its advantages in the mobile phone market to the automotive field.
In April last year, MediaTek officially released the Dimensity automotive platform, applying its flagship brand "Dimensity" on the mobile platform to the automotive field, in order to demonstrate MediaTek's determination to lay out the automotive industry. A year later, the three chips of Dimensity Automotive Cockpit Platform CT-X1, CT-Y1 and CT-Y0 were officially unveiled, providing a new choice for mid-to-high-end models of car companies.
Image source: MediaTek
According to Antutu information, the CT-Y1 based on 4nm has a measured Antutu car machine version with a running score of more than 1.07 million, and the computing performance of this light flagship is basically the same as that of the Snapdragon 8295 flagship. The flagship CT-X1 built by the 3nm process has 30% stronger performance than the Snapdragon 8295, making it the strongest cockpit chip on the market.
The reason why the device-side large model will become the general trend is that the cloud large model relies too much on the communication network, and the experience is not good in scenarios with weak signals such as basements and tunnels, while the device-side large model not only solves such problems well, but also has many advantages such as fast response speed and better privacy.
Caption: You Renjie, Senior Vice President of MediaTek and General Manager of the Metaverse Business Group of Computing Unicom
"MediaTek's cockpit platform can accelerate the application of AI in the cloud to the device, which is the value we hope MediaTek can bring to customers," said Yourenjie.
Compared with many car companies in the industry that cut the large model to 5 billion or even 10-2 billion parameters, MediaTek's cockpit platform supports 70~13 billion parameters, which has a leading advantage, which can help car companies establish a leading brand image and better explore and develop the intelligent automotive industry.
In addition to advanced manufacturing processes and superior end-side generative AI technology, MediaTek's cockpit platform is also highly integrated. According to official information, the Dimensity automotive cockpit platform CT-X1, CT-Y1 and CT-Y0 not only integrate many functions such as 5G T-BOX, dual-band Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), but also have a built-in flagship-level HDR ISP image processor, which supports AI noise reduction, AI 3A and other intelligent image optimization technologies.
According to Weizhi Yu, deputy general manager of MediaTek Dimensity Automotive Connectivity Platform, MediaTek can help car companies reduce costs from three aspects: high hardware integration, shortening the development cycle, and optimizing system performance. For example, in the optimization of the development cycle, MediaTek can shorten the time from project approval to mass production to 1 year, while the industry average takes 2 years, which means that MediaTek can help car companies save half of the labor cost.
Image source: MediaTek
"We've done a lot of software work and built a good software base that can significantly reduce costs in the CPU, GPU, and AI areas, which may bring more cost savings than you can imagine," he further explains.
Under the general trend of increasingly fierce competition in the automotive industry and price wars, MediaTek has launched cockpit chips with excellent performance and more controllable costs, which not only promotes the rapid evolution of the industry, but also serves as a new successor to the throne in this field.
Join hands with NVIDIA to accelerate the intelligence of automobiles
It is an inevitable trend of the development of the industry for large models to move from the cloud to the vehicle end, and this development trend has laid the foundation for MediaTek to achieve more market share. As a company committed to bringing more value to the automotive industry, MediaTek's layout is not limited to the cockpit field.
Last year, MediaTek launched the Dimensity automotive platform, which covers solutions in four directions: cockpit platform, connection platform, driving platform, and key components.
Among them, MediaTek's leading edge in 5G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, navigation, satellite communication and other connection technologies, as well as many key components such as power management chips, screen driver chips, camera ISPs, etc., have long been applied in cars, and in the field of intelligent driving, the cooperation with NVIDIA has provided it with a broad imagination.
Image source: MediaTek
In May last year, MediaTek reached a partnership with NVIDIA and officially announced that MediaTek will develop an automotive SoC that integrates NVIDIA GPU chiplets, equipped with NVIDIA AI and graphics computing IP capabilities. At the NVIDIA GTC conference held in March this year, MediaTek announced four cockpit SoCs in collaboration with NVIDIA: C-X1, C-Y1, C-M1 and C-V1, all of which support NVIDIA DRIVE OS software.
MediaTek's leading cockpit chip and NVIDIA's intelligent driving chip are very advantageous, as well as the background of the automotive industry has launched the development of "cockpit and driver integration", it is not difficult to predict that the cooperation between MediaTek and NVIDIA will cater to the industry development trend of "cockpit and driver integration".
In Yourenjie's view, the cooperation between MediaTek and NVIDIA has three significances: one is based on long-term development considerations to prepare for "cockpit integration"; second, the two sides can achieve mutual value-added and enhance their competitiveness in low-power product design and product layout; third, in the era of AI explosion, the cooperation between the two sides can strengthen the layout of the AI ecosystem and develop synergistically and rapidly.
Image source: MediaTek
"There is no doubt that MediaTek's entire Dimensity automotive platform, including the cockpit, connectivity, and future intelligent driving, is aimed at the global market. MediaTek's core technology is computing, including CPU, GPU, NPU computing power, behind the computing represents the advanced process, how fast can be mass-produced capacity, the cost of each advanced process is not a small company can afford. MediaTek has a good platform for these products, and based on such a platform and our core technology, we can continue to invest in the future computing platform, the automotive platform, and then target the global market, which is the way for IC design companies with advanced process capabilities to gain a foothold in the future generative AI-defined smart car market in the medium to long term, which is one of the values that MediaTek can provide in the market immediately," he added.
It is not difficult to find that MediaTek provides a complete set of solutions for the automotive industry, and with the development of smart cars, MediaTek's accumulation in the fields of intelligent driving, connection platforms, and key components will also provide good support for smart cars.
From a long-term development perspective, the evolution of automotive intelligence requires strong support from chip manufacturers, including the launch of advanced process chips to bring large models to the vehicle end, and huge test investment is also required to make large models more accurate and convenient, while more advanced manufacturing processes and huge test expenditures are not affordable by ordinary enterprises. From this point of view, MediaTek and Nvidia's strategy of going hand in hand has quite positive significance, and they can provide better scarce resources for the intelligent development of automobiles.