Qualcomm’s CES Offerings to Further Industry’s, Company’s Transitions
The company’s new-generation system-on-a-chip that serves both the ADAS and digital-cockpit processing needs could accelerate the SDV evolution for automakers. It also could be a step toward fulling the company’s goal of becoming a full-fledged Tier 1 supplier.
LAS VEGAS – Qualcomm Automotive takes a significant leap this week toward advancing the industry’s movement to the software-defined vehicle as well as in furthering its own evolution.
Here at CES 2023, the semiconductor and software-solutions company is showing off its next-generation Snapdragon Ride Flex SoC (System-on-Chip) product family that takes the next step along the path to a unified central-compute vehicle electronics architecture by combining both digital cockpit and advanced driver-assistance system/autonomy processing capabilities onto a single chip.
Available for testing now and expected to be ready for production vehicles by 2024, the new more-powerful Flex SoC provides both performance benefits and cost-savings for OEMs, Qualcomm says. Designed to meet the highest level of automotive safety (ASIL-D), it pre-integrates Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Ride Vision stack that enables scalable ADAS and more advanced automated-driving technology by processing inputs from multiple camera, radar and lidar sensors.
The combination of ADAS/AV and digital-cockpit functions onto a single SoC means automakers will be able to integrate cockpit displays with immersive high-end graphics, infotainment gaming displays and rear-seat entertainment screens concurrently with a latency-critical premium audio experience and the Snapdragon Ride Vision stack, the company says.
That dual-purpose capability will help Qualcomm address the divergent paths the industry currently is on, where some automakers are moving quickly to entirely new SDV-focused electronics architectures and others simply are looking for additional cost reduction through design efficiency, Nakul Duggal, senior vice president and general manager of Qualcomm Automotive, says in an interview ahead of today’s product reveals.
“We are now working with a number of different automakers who are designing their next-generation architectures (where) software is its own independent product and the hardware being a foundation that just has to work,” meaning it can be scaled up, Duggal says.
“And then there are other automakers that simply have economics in mind,” he adds. “The thought process is, ‘If I can actually bring the same (feature) capability at a reduced cost to a much larger number of vehicles, why would I not want to go to that?’”
“So, what you see with Flex is a combination (that meets) the two (OEM requirements).”
The new SoC debuts here alongside a new generation of the Snapdragon Ride Vision platform. Qualcomm says major Tier 1s are sampling that software now and are aiming for introduction in production vehicles by 2025. A long list of suppliers utilizes the Snapdragon Ride Vision software already, including Continental, Haomo AI, Hyundai Mobis, Valeo, ZF, Luminar and others.
Snapdragon Digital Chassis Concept Vehicle Image #6 crop
The new SoC technology is being demonstrated on a concept car Qualcomm is unveiling here for the first time. The concept is a drivable, full battery-electric vehicle.
“That’s something we’re super excited to showcase,” Duggal says. “It has a single SoC that is powering everything in it. It has a second platform for connectivity, and everything you see in it from productivity applications to safety to collaboration, gaming, audio…are capabilities that have been integrated by our team and our ecosystem partners.