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On July 29th, domestic AI startup Horizon hosted a high-performance whole-vehicle computing platform and strategic press conference in Shanghai.
Regarding the press conference, Dr. Kai Yu, the founder and CEO of Horizon, described it as the “most important press conference” since its establishment 6 years ago. The significance of this press conference is reflected in Horizon’s three major moves:
The first release of the high-performance chip Horizon Journey 5: maximum 128 TOPS computing power, 1283 FPS frame rate, 60ms latency, and 30W power consumption;
The first release of the high-performance whole-vehicle intelligent computing platform: based on Horizon Journey 5 chips, single-board computing power can reach 512 TOPS, and dual-board combined can reach 1024 TOPS;
The first release of an open-source strategy: adhering to “integral altruism” enterprise values, providing rich hardware interfaces and chip toolchains to create an ecosystem.
From 1 to N
For Horizon, the release of Horizon Journey 5 is pioneering because prior to this, Horizon had just completed the leap from 0 to 1.
For most start-ups, going from 0 to 1 may be the most challenging step. China’s first deep neural network chip company, Horizon, is no exception.
The chip industry is a highly barriered industry, with high research and development investment and long return cycles, making it extremely unfriendly to start-ups. Even giants like Qualcomm have experienced pain from poor financial performance for two consecutive quarters due to chip research and development.
At the same time, in the smart driving chip race, domestic start-ups also face the dilemma of a shortage of high-end talent and the slaughter of giants such as NVIDIA and Intel. The difficulty of Horizon’s entrepreneurial period can be imagined.
Dr. Yu admitted that the financing difficulties encountered in 2016 were the darkest moment for Horizon, and the company was quite confused until 2019.
Horizon’s turning point came from cooperation with Ideal and Changan. As we all know, the new 2021 Ideal ONE is equipped with Horizon’s dual “Journey 3” chips, but their first collaboration was much earlier- Horizon provided audio algorithms for the multi-tone zone interaction technology of 2020 Ideal ONE.This is a crucial collaboration for Horizon, as it has entered the procurement list of automakers by providing only audio algorithms. Through this collaboration, Horizon has gained experience in solving related issues and understanding the logic of collaborating with automakers.
The collaboration between Horizon and Changan is even more significant as it provides the Journey 2 chip for the UNI-T. Although it is only an intelligent cockpit chip with a computing power of only 4 TOPS, UNI-T has opened the prelude to the mass production of Horizon chips for cars.
With the Journey 3 chip, which has a computing power of 5 TOPS, installed in the newly released Ideal ONE vehicle, Horizon has become one of the three global companies that provide market-oriented, mass-produced ADAS dedicated chips to car manufacturers.
To date, Horizon has delivered more than 400,000 car-level chips and has invested in leading automakers such as BYD, Great Wall Motors, and Changan. It has also signed a strategic cooperation framework agreement with the Shanghai municipal government, and its intelligent car chip R&D headquarters and intelligent car central computing platform have settled in Shanghai, where they have completed the transition from 0 to 1, and are now on the journey from 1 to N.
Journey 5 and Intelligent Computing Platform
The next challenge for Horizon is how to achieve the journey from 1 to N, and the key to victory lies in Journey 5, which can provide a computing power of up to 128 TOPS, making it the third car-grade AI chip produced by Horizon.
What does the computing power of 128 TOPS mean? First, it is the threshold for L3/L4 autonomous driving.
L3 is the watershed for autonomous driving, and L3 or higher means that vehicle control shifts from human to autonomous. We are currently in the process of jumping from L2+ to L3, and the reality facing us is the high computing power required for L3 autonomous driving. The industry consensus is that it is difficult to achieve L3 and L4 autonomous driving without several hundred TOPS of computing power.
In addition to its 128 TOPS computing power, Journey 5 can achieve a frame rate of up to 1283 FPS. The relationship between chip computing power and frame rate is analogous to that between car horsepower and acceleration.## The Implementation of Horizon 1283 Frame Rate
The implementation of the Horizon 1283 frame rate is thanks to its independently developed Bayesian Processor Unit (BPU) architecture. This architecture features large-scale heterogeneous process computing that can adapt the best computing mode for different scenarios. At the same time, multiple formulas can be calculated by point-to-point computing through cross-layer aggregation to improve the supply capacity of stored data, thereby reducing power consumption and latency.
Another feature of the BPU Bayesian architecture is the addition of flexible data compression methods in the design of the data bridge. By saving space in the transmission process, the high data throughput capacity of the computing unit can be improved, thereby increasing the chip’s effective utilization.
In terms of safety, Horizon Journey 5 has passed the ASIL B functional safety certification. Based on Horizon Journey 5, the system can achieve the ASIL-D functional safety level and can be fully tracked through safety island design. At the same time, Horizon Journey 5 supports nine different encryption algorithms.
So far, Horizon has reached mass production cooperation intentions with many automakers, including SAIC, Great Wall, Jiangqi, Changan, BYD, NETA, and Voyah, based on Journey 5. And a pre-research cooperation intention with Ideal Auto based on Journey 5 has also been reached.
Based on Journey 5, Horizon has launched the Matrix 5 intelligent driving computing platform for all scenarios, with a single board of 512 TOPS computing power and dual boards with a combined 1024 TOPS computing power. In terms of interfaces, Matrix 5 supports 48 camera views, multiple millimeter wave radars, 4D imaging radars, laser radars, ultrasonic waves, and microphone arrays.
At the same time, based on MATRIX 5, Horizon has cooperated with Continental Group, Neusoft, Luxshare Precision, and Linkwin Technology to complete the design and production of four intelligent central computing platforms.
Based on the MATRIX 5 hardware, Horizon has further launched the Horizon Matrix SuperDrive intelligent solution for the whole car.
Thanks to the high computing power and multiple interfaces of MATRIX 5, SuperDrive can achieve intelligent full-scene connectivity, supporting high-level autonomous driving in the three major driving scenarios: high speed, city, and parking. It can also meet the interactive requirements of the intelligent cockpit.In Q4 this year, SuperDrive will be able to demonstrate complex urban autonomous driving with a DEMO, and by Q4 2022, SuperDrive will reach SOP for mass production.
“All We Live For”
At the press conference, Yu Kai repeatedly emphasized that Horizon’s corporate values are “All We Live For,” emphasizing that “Horizon insists on not producing mass hardware, not bundling software, and not making enclosed packaging solutions.”
Horizon positions itself as a Tier-2 supplier, and Zhang Yufeng, Deputy General Manager and General Manager of Intelligent Driving Products, stated that “Horizon insists on being the common denominator in the industry.”
One of the core competencies that Horizon boasts about is its extreme local service, which is also its tradition. Looking back at the cooperation between Horizon and Li Auto, there are hundreds of engineers who are directly involved in Li’s projects, and engineers who are deeply responsible often work overtime until midnight.
Li Auto CEO Li Xiang commented on Horizon, saying “very satisfied. Whether it’s R&D or testing, Horizon will send professional engineers to support us, which is a world of difference compared to previous chip companies.”
In addition to the extreme localization services, another factor that contributed to the cooperation between Li Auto and Horizon is Horizon’s openness. Li Xiang once said, “We originally used Mobileye’s Black Box algorithm, but we couldn’t touch the core algorithm, which is a domain that suppliers don’t open.”
In contrast, Horizon provides a comprehensive development toolchain on the basis of its own abundant software and hardware interfaces for Journey 5, and this open model has been proven efficient in past cooperation.
It only took 10 months from the import of Changan UNI-T for Journey 2, far exceeding the 3-year period for chip production from the project to mass production in the past. Benefitting from the fully open and deep cooperation of hardware design parameters, the design and production of four computing platforms based on MATRIX 5 completed in cooperation with suppliers as described above only took two months.
In addition to the chip, Horizon has algorithmic IPs in automatic driving, intelligent interaction, and in- and out-of-car linkage, which are available for open cooperation.
Horizon’s idea is to ultimately create an open ecology by providing development kits, basic software, toolchains, reference algorithms, and complete solutions, thereby helping partners reduce 70% of development costs, shorten 50% of development cycles, and recude 50% of manpower investment.“`markdown
Meanwhile, Horizon plans to build an open online knowledge community, providing quick online responses to software products for the community.
The automotive industry is facing a once-in-a-century intelligent transformation, and cooperation patterns and divisions of labor are also undergoing changes. Horizon’s understanding of the transformation is open collaboration that benefits both self and others.
TogetherOS
Yu Kai also brought One More Thing to the press conference: Horizon will work with industry partners to create a real-time operating system TogetherOS.
There are several interesting labels for TogetherOS: based on seL4 microkernel, open-source, and co-creation.
It is not difficult to understand building based on microkernel. The microkernel system is most suitable for the era of interconnectivity. Huawei has already launched HarmonyOS based on microkernel, and Google has also released Fushion OS based on microkernel.
TogetherOS also demonstrates the attitude of interconnectivity, and it will be compatible with Linux, Android, Zebra, UNIX, Hongmeng, and other systems through virtual machines. In addition, hardware will also be compatible with the mainstream in-vehicle chips outside of Horizon.
As for co-creative ecology, the first batch of ecological partners for TogetherOS includes Zebra, Changan Automobile, Great Wall Automobile, Jiangling Motors, SAIC Group, and Xiongshi Technology.
Conclusion
In the field of chips worldwide, only a few American companies have become kings. Intel was the king in the PC era, Qualcomm in the mobile era. In the era of artificial intelligence, is it possible for a Chinese company to support the entire industry?
Focusing on the intelligent electric vehicle industry, this may be the most significant racetrack in the future in China and even in the world, and there will be two most important suppliers upstream. Ningde Times has emerged in the battery field, and due to the high barriers to entry in the chip industry, a giant in the field of intelligent driving chips will inevitably emerge.
Can Horizon ride this trend of automatic driving and become the “Ningde Times” of the AI intelligent driving chip industry? Obviously, Horizon faces greater challenges in the chip industry, but this also means that the scenery on this journey will be more beautiful, and the story will be more exciting.
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This article is a translation by ChatGPT of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.