Introduction
In the field of autonomous driving chips, names like Nvidia and Mobileye are often heard. They have dominated the field of autonomous driving and are highly respected by the Chinese people. However, with the release of Horizon Journey 5, the situation has fundamentally improved. China’s autonomous driving chips have reached the forefront of world technology.
On July 29, 2021, Horizon, the leader in edge artificial intelligence platforms, held the “Journey Together, Accompanying Each Other Along the Way” high-performance and large-scale intelligent computing platform and strategic launch conference at the Shanghai International Automobile City.
During this conference, Horizon Journey®5, the central computing chip for intelligent vehicles across all scenarios, the open-source secure real-time operating system TogetherOS™️, the high-performance and large-scale intelligent computing platform based on Journey 5, and the integrated intelligent solution for full-scenario autonomous driving and internal and external coordination experience, Horizon Matrix® SuperDrive, were all unveiled one by one. They represent the highest level of Horizon and even the edge artificial intelligence field in China, becoming a highly anticipated event in the domestic automotive industry. In addition to Horizon’s own products, representatives from many domestic first-tier traditional automakers and new carmakers attended the conference, demonstrating the appeal and influence of Horizon in the domestic automotive industry.
The emerging Journey 5 helps automakers break through the L4 autonomous driving computing bottleneck
High-level autonomous driving is the most dazzling gem of the era of intelligent-connected vehicles, and artificial intelligence chips are the core of autonomous driving hardware. The difficulty of its research and development is self-evident.
After the successful production of Journey 2 and Journey 3 Chinese car-level artificial intelligence chips, Horizon introduces the third-generation car-level product – Journey 5. With its large computing power and high performance, a single chip has an AI computing power of 128 TOPS, which is widely recognized as the computing power threshold for L3/L4 level autonomous driving. In addition, Journey 5 also supports 16-channel camera perception computing, with its highly efficient collaboration characteristics, which can meet the needs of multi-sensor fusion, prediction, and planning control required for autonomous driving. In terms of safety, Journey 5 chip was certified with the global recognized automotive functional safety standard – ISO 26262 ASIL-B Functional Safety Product Certification in July this year, meeting the functional safety development requirements of mainstream OEMs and Tier1s. With the official release of Journey 5, Horizon becomes the only provider in the industry that can offer whole-vehicle smart chip solutions covering from L2 to L4, helping China to be at the forefront of the global autonomous driving chip industry.
In addition to technical leadership, Horizon has been in the forefront of quantity production among domestic autonomous driving chip enterprises through close cooperation with host companies. Since the mass production in 2020, Horizon has cumulatively shipped more than 400,000 chips, while obtaining more than 40 fixed-point front-loading mass production projects. Journey series has received unanimous praise from domestic self-owned car brands and has formed a very high reputation in the industry, becoming the preferred partner for autonomous driving chip in China’s automotive industry.
The expanding circle of friends is also the best example of the Journey series chips’ growth. Currently, Changan UNI-T and UNI-K, IM Auto, GAC AION Y, JAC Sihao QX, SAIC Datong MAXUS, Chery Ant, Voyah FREE, GAC Trumpchi GS4 PLUS, 2021 Ideal ONE are already equipped with Journey series products.
The announcement at the press conference that several models of FAW Hongqi, SAIC Roewe’s new SUV, and Haval H9 will also be equipped with Horizon Journey chips, has proved that Horizon chips have entered the supply chain system of top domestic self-owned car brands such as SAIC, Great Wall Motor, and FAW, and the title of China’s No.1 autonomous driving chip is undisputed. With the first appearance of Journey 5, Horizon’s territory in this field will only get bigger, and its advantages will only become more evident.
Matrix 5 autonomous driving computing platform product, with stronger computing powerBeyond the Journey 5 chip, Matrix 5 autonomous driving computing platform is another highlight of this product launch. It is a vehicle intelligent computing platform reference design based on the latest generation of high-performance AI chips for vehicle standards, namely the Beyond the Journey 5, developed by Horizon Robotics. The platform integrates four Beyond the Journey 5 chips, with a single board computing power of up to 512 TOPS, and a dual board computing power of up to 1024 TOPS. In terms of interfaces, Matrix 5 supports the access of 48 cameras, multiple millimeter-wave radars, 4D imaging radars, laser radars, ultrasonic waves, and microphone arrays. At the launch event, Horizon Robotics also announced that several companies, including Continental Group, Neusoft Reach, Luxshare Precision, and Jiangsu Liancheng Exploration, have developed various hardware products based on the reference design of Horizon Robotics’ Matrix 5.
TogetherOS, the Open-Source Real-Time Operating System for Security in China
As Horizon Robotics founder Yu Kai said, maintaining the openness of software and the independent design of products is crucial for automotive companies. As a partner constantly creating value for automakers, Horizon Robotics has also launched TogetherOS, an open-source real-time operating system for security in China. This system is based on the open-source microkernel seL4 and is compatible with mainstream vehicle chip platforms, including Beyond the Journey, and mainstream operating systems.
The current expansion of intelligent car applications by automakers has driven increasingly high demands for onboard SoC platforms. This platform needs to cover various usage scenarios, such as autonomous driving, intelligent interaction, intelligent interconnection, and intelligent vehicle control, while also satisfying real-time and functional safety requirements raised by autonomous driving. By adopting the TogetherOS designed for the domain-centric and central-centric onboard SoC platform of the next generation, it can not only support different operating systems required by different functional domains through virtualization, but also has high flexibility and scalability to support both simple and complex scenarios with small or multiple cores. Just like the Beyond the Journey 5 chip, Horizon Robotics’ partners, such as AutoCore, Changan Automobile, Great Wall Motor, Jiangqiao Group, Xiongshi Technology, Pony.ai, and SAIC Motor, have announced at the release event that they will become the first batch of ecological partners of TogetherOS.
To tackle the soul-searching question from main automakers, Horizon Robotics aims to be the common denominator in the industry
SAIC’s soul-searching question has caused a great stir in the automotive industry. For every component company in it, it is necessary to make a clear definition of its positioning, and Horizon Robotics defines itself as Tier 2. At the press conference, Horizon Robotics founder Yu Kai repeatedly mentioned the company’s values of “universal, altruistic”, emphasizing that “Horizon Robotics insists on not manufacturing mass-produced hardware, not bundling software, and not providing closed-packaging solutions”.
In the entire press conference, representatives from main automakers such as SAIC Motor, Great Wall Motors, JAC Motors, Li Auto, Changan Automobile, BYD, NIO, and Voyah were invited to the stage one by one. This undoubtedly highlights the weight of Horizon Robotics in the minds of main automakers, and also proves that Horizon Robotics’ full dedication to the projects of main automakers has been fully recognized by them.
Even the recently launched Journey 5 chip has already ushered in the intention of mass production cooperation from many automakers such as SAIC Group, Great Wall Motors, JAC Motors, Changan Automobile, BYD, NIO, and Voyah, and the Ideal Automobile has reached a pre-research cooperation with Horizon Robotics based on the Journey 5 to speed up the popularity of its high-level autonomous driving function. After all, ever since the release of the Ideal ONE 2021 model equipped with the Journey series products, it has continually sold well and won the sales champion of the domestic new energy vehicle brand for two consecutive months in June and July. Its excellent driving assistance function received high praise from consumers, and the Journey chip definitely played a significant role in it.
With the release of Journey 5, the most significant constraint related to hardware of high-level autonomous driving technology – control chips – has been broken through. Domestic AI intelligent driving chip technology has already been in a leading position globally. Based on Journey 5 and the high-performance intelligent computing platform derived from it, in the near future, a large number of models capable of achieving L4-level autonomous driving ability in hardware computing power will emerge in China.And with the continuous upgrading and optimization of software, we will also achieve unlimitedly close to or even reach L4-level autonomous driving capability. Horizon will grow into another giant of the domestic intelligent electric vehicle era, just like CATL. A large number of rising domestic top component suppliers who master core technologies led by Horizon and CATL will also join hands with independent brand auto companies, becoming the most solid foundation for China’s automobile industry to move towards the world.
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.