Talk by Xu Yingchun, Ideal Automotive’s Vice President of Computing Platform & OS, at the Semiconductor Conference
Theme: Layout of High Computing Platform for Intelligent Vehicles
About Ideal Automotive:
- Ideal Automotive has two product lines, one is the current extended range platform, and the other is the high-voltage pure electric platform under development. Ideal’s brand concept is to make autonomous driving and key safety configurations standard.
Industry Status:
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The main reason why Ideal adopted a distributed architecture in the early days was the limitation of chip computing power. Currently, the entire industry is constantly evolving from distributed architecture to centralized architecture, mainly due to the increase in computing power of semiconductor chips, while communication technology has also made great progress. If the integration level of chips is increased in the future, we will evolve to a centralized architecture for CCUs. The current situation in the industry is that with the increase in computing power, more functions need to be integrated together, and real-time operating systems will also be integrated.
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At the same time, Ethernet and CAN FD are also constantly evolving, and the future central computing platform will be more integrated, helping multiple domains to be integrated into one or more SOCs. With the improvement of computing power and SOCs in the future, software will also develop virtualization technology and operating systems to meet the application requirements of different domains.
Future Trends:
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The application requirements of the autonomous driving domain, vehicle control domain, and intelligent cabin domain are actually different. Therefore, through virtualization of hardware resources and communication technology, they can all develop towards a centralized integration in the future, and all computations will be migrated to the central computing platform.
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From another perspective, the computing platform is actually an abstraction of the equipment on the vehicle. Through this platform’s abstraction of the equipment, we will abstract different APIs and different operating environments. This allows application developers not to worry about what the underlying hardware is like. They only need to develop their applications based on these APIs. At the same time, this platform plays another role, which is the allocation and management of hardware resources. It will also connect with the cloud through SOA architecture, to achieve the goal of processing some applications in the cloud. The other role of the cloud is to process data for intelligent driving.
There are many limitations to the current computing platform, which is more like an early feature phone. Once a feature phone is sold, its functionality will not change. But today’s smartphones upgrade their software through OTA and add new features. Traditional cars are more like feature phones, with unmodifiable software and fixed functionality. When intelligent vehicles are released, they usually have powerful hardware, and through rapid software iteration, new functions and updates can be added, and new software functions can be developed. APIs are also open for ecological partners to develop together.
Ideal Automotive’s future plans:- The ideal second generation product will be launched in the market next year, equipped with a super XCU (Vehicle Motion Controller), which actually integrates many vehicle control levels. The ideal next-generation autonomous driving platform is the Orin chip, but it has also been observing domestic chips, based on domestic chip FSD autonomous driving.
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All second and third generation products are self-developed.
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Regarding CCU, it actually involves hardware and chip selection. We (Ideal) will choose some high-computing power autonomous driving chips, while also doing regulatory control. We will use a high-security operating system and middleware for software, and a high-bandwidth switch for communication. In the case of insufficient perception computing power, the high-bandwidth switch helps integrate different chips together, enabling it to expand its perception and regulatory computing power. In addition, when it is released, we will reserve a lot of computing space for future applications, and it is impossible to have no room for expansion once released.
Another aspect closely related to the EE architecture is the Zonal Domain Controller, which is very important for the aggregation of data from devices, actuators, and sensors in the vehicle, as well as for energy distribution. The domain controller can significantly reduce the number of ECUs and wiring harnesses in the vehicle.
Currently, the in-vehicle Ethernet is a G, and the next generation hopes to reach 2.5G or even 10G, so that it is possible to aggregate camera data and ultimately transmit it to CCU. Another consideration is Li OS, which is an ideal self-developed, high-real-time and high-security system. Why self-developed? Mainly for vertical integration of resources. There are also many benefits in the ecosystem, which can bring better user experience. Ultimately, an open software and hardware integrated intelligent platform can be created through this operating system, which can also promote the development of the entire industry.
Regarding the Li OS ecosystem:
- Regarding the Li OS ecosystem, there are several key points. One is the vehicle ecology. Currently, it is being used in our own vehicles, but will be opened to other manufacturers in the future. The platform’s bottom layer will also be compatible with different hardware chips, including autonomous driving chips and general computing chips. The upper-layer applications refer not only to some apps, but also to smart homes, device terminals, and so on.
In summary, the key to the computing platform is a central computing platform, a regional controller, and a high-bandwidth switch, which form a powerful computing platform for future vehicles. Of course, on top of the hardware platform, there are self-developed operating systems and middleware, as well as application development environments and tools. The goal is to create an open software and hardware integrated ecosystem platform to promote innovation and development of the industry.
How to evaluate the success of a platform?
One is the development efficiency and cost, another is the number of regional controllers, and also the entire vehicle’s wiring harness. In addition to cost, the wiring harness is also troublesome for manufacturing because it is done manually.To create a good and dynamic ecosystem, it has always been an ideal goal to involve more social forces in development, ultimately providing users with secure and easy-to-use systems. The final measure of success lies in the number of vehicles sold, as the quantity naturally increases when the system is user-friendly. These are some insights and considerations for platform development.
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.