Mobileye Archives - Counterpoint

A Promising Yet Challenging Market for Self-driving SoCs

ADAS penetration in global car shipments will reach 78.7% by 2024 as new players help drive the ADAS chip market.
Level 2 category will have a revenue market share of 44.4% in 2022 and 60% in 2024 due to higher safety criteria and lower component prices.
The share of Level 4 SoCs in revenue will reach 24% in 2030. These SoCs will be used in luxury automobiles and robotaxis since they have a higher entrance barrier and cost more than Level 3 SoCs.

Semiconductors are becoming more important for automobiles as electrification and intelligence continue to advance. Among these, the level of intelligence has emerged as an essential factor that customers consider when buying a vehicle. The accuracy and efficiency of autonomous driving are determined by the computational capabilities and manufacturing process of the chip. Therefore, the increase in demand for autonomous driving is pushing the demand for advanced processes and will significantly increase the market size of advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS)/Autonomous driving (AD) chips. The computational capability of ADAS/AD processors must meet the requirements of the corresponding autonomous driving level. The Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) defines the various levels of autonomous driving as follows:

The TOPS (trillion operations per second) of Level 2 ADAS/AD chips is typically between 10 and 100, but the TOPS of Level 3 is between 150 and 200 and the TOPS of Level 4/Level 5 is more than 400 and will reach 1000+. Each level is divided further based on functionality. Basic Level 2 features include only adaptive cruise control (ACC) and lane-keeping system (LKS), and can be achieved by an SoC with only 10 TOPS. However, advanced Level 2 may require up to 75 TOPS to achieve advanced ACC, which can maintain the lane center and pre-control the speed at upcoming curves.

The global ADAS/AD SoC market is expected to reach $30 billion by 2030 with a CAGR of 26.3% between 2022 and 2027. SoCs in the Level 2 category will have a revenue market share of 44.4% in 2022, which will reach a record high of 60% in 2024 due to an increase in safety requirements and a decrease in component prices. Level 3 AD systems will take a few years to gain the public’s trust, but by 2027, they will replace Level 2 as the standard. Compared to Level 3 SoCs, Level 4 SoCs have greater computational capability and bandwidth to process more high-resolution images and make a quick response. As a result, the entry barrier and cost of Level 4 SoCs are much higher than those of Level 3 SoCs, hence they will mostly be utilized in luxury vehicles and robotaxis.

The entry barrier to Level 1 and Level 2 ADAS SoC is low. Therefore, ADAS penetration can increase significantly when the cost of ADAS sensors, such as cameras and radars, continues to decline. Counterpoint expects that the global penetration of ADAS in car shipments will reach 78.7% by 2024. At the same time, multiple new players will enter the ADAS chip market. These startups are capable of AI chip design and mass production, and their solutions can swiftly fulfill localized requirements, such as local language and localization algorithms, at competitive prices. Therefore, emerging car OEMs will favor these new solutions. However, traditional automotive chips, such as Renesas and NXP, are also providing solutions. Level 3 employs more sensors and more efficient computing units than Level 2. The most significant difference between Level 3 and Level 4 is the improvement in artificial intelligence, as Level 4 autonomous vehicles must be able to take rapid decisions.

On the other hand, the development of autonomous driving (AD) chips is primarily driven by established consumer electronics giants such as NVIDIA and Intel (Mobileye). The R&D expenditures and entry barriers for AD chips are significantly greater than those for ADAS. In addition to the core AI chip, AD solutions should also incorporate connectivity, sensing systems, image training models, ADAS map development, route planning, vehicle control, driver monitoring systems (DMS), natural language processing (NLP) and intelligent cockpit solutions. Moreover, the AD chip must be able to deliver tailored and region-specific algorithms. This must be accomplished through the collaboration of automotive OEMs and AD chip companies. All of these factors make it challenging to create a good AD chip and the payback time is also lengthy.

Advantages, Disadvantages Faced by 3 Primary ADAS/AD Chip Vendors

In the past, there used to be a distinct division of labor between car OEMs, Tier 1 suppliers and chip vendors (Tier 2). The chip vendors might be either fabless firms or IDMs, and both would place orders to the foundry. Since the demand for semiconductors in the automotive industry was modest and all semiconductors used in automobiles were manufactured with mature processes, the foundry was less important. However, the performance and features in future automotive processors will play a crucial role in migrating to autonomous driving and electrification. Consequently, the ecosystem of collaboration between OEMs, Tier 1 suppliers and chip manufacturers is beginning to shift. Chip providers which were once Tier 2 are beginning to collaborate directly with OEMs. In addition, these three types of companies may engage directly with foundries to secure chip sources.

Competitor landscape

Mobileye is the leading Level 1 and 2 supplier due to its early entry. However, because of a lack of flexibility and superior alternatives, Chinese automakers want to replace Mobileye with NVIDIA or Horizon robots. Additionally, its solution has less computational power than those of its competitors. To keep up with other companies, Mobileye also introduced at CES 2022 its EyeQUltra, EyeQ6 Light and EyeQ6 High SoCs for L4, L2 and L1/L autonomous driving, respectively.

NVIDIA has aggressively entered the automobile autonomous driving market with its expertise in GPUs for the AI business. The benefits of NVIDIA’s AD processors include high computational power, extensive software tools and a complete environment allowing clients to create their own algorithms. In terms of clientele, NVIDIA works with the majority of automakers and Tier 1 suppliers worldwide. Atlan, the most recent AD chip from NVIDIA, has been released in 2022 with 1000 TOPS of computational capacity and is expected to enter mass production by 2025, aiming at L4/L5 autonomous driving solutions.

Qualcomm is a pioneer in smart cockpits but a follower in autonomous driving technology. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Ride, a high-performance, low-power autonomous driving solution that supports L1-L5 degrees of autonomy, is aimed at the mid-to-high-end autonomous driving market.

Horizon Robotics, one of the few autonomous driving chip solution vendors in China, will likely supply to Chinese automakers in the coming years. Horizon has positioned itself as a competitor to Mobileye and NVIDIA. A new participant in the industry, it has introduced many products that correspond to Mobileye’s solution. In contrast to NVIDIA’s general-purpose processors, Horizon’s AD SoCs are ASICs, which consume less power and are more efficient than general-purpose CPUs. However, they are less flexible and may experience the same difficulty when moving to Level 3 and beyond.

Execution Woes and Economy Sink Intel Earnings

Intel, under immense pressure from internal execution delays in key segments – DCAI, AXG and product design, and economic headwinds from falling consumer demand and fiscal tightening, reported its eighth consecutive YoY revenue decline and its first net loss in 30 years, amounting to $454 Mn.

The GAAP revenue dropped to $15.3 Bn, a 22% YoY decline and missed its estimate by $2.7 Bn for the Q2 outlook due to weaker demand in CCG and lose of market share to AMD.
Gross margins declined 15% YoY and stood at 44.8% compared to 59.8% in the previous year quarter due to component pricing not passed onto consumers

This was well below the guidance issued at its Investor Day and Q1 quarterly earnings where it projected to be above 50%.

Source: Counterpoint Estimates, Company Earnings

Segment Reports

Client Computing: OEM inventory reductions and soft demand contribute to 25% revenue decline; Lowest since 2014

Client Computing Revenues were at $7.7 Bn a 25% decline in YoY revenues and 29% decline in the ‘Notebook’ segment. The biggest decline factors were:

OEM inventory reduction followed by softening demand from consumer, education and SMB (Small and Medium Sized Business) customers.

The company expects the revenue to decline in Q3 and then rise again in Q4 due to inventory balancing and price increases. The company expects a 10% decline in the PC TAM for this financial year.

The company expects its roadmap of Raptor Lake processors to be on schedule for this Q3 and Q4 for desktop and notebook chip releases respectively.

Source: Counterpoint Estimates, Company Earnings

Datacenter and AI (DCAI) underperforms due to execution issues, match-set issues and ethernet & power supply component shortages

The DCAI revenue was $4.6 Bn a 16% YoY decline.

The revenue slump was primarily due to execution issues of stepping out ‘Sapphire Rapids’ which has been delayed three times due to security and quality performance not being in line with expectations and competitor products.

The company had launched its last generation of processors – Ice Lake in 2019 and Cooper Lake in 2020 with some upgrades in 2021.

The revenue for DCAI will remain downcast for the whole year due to the financial impact of Sapphire Rapids ramp only being realized next year and competitive pressures for its existing product line. The company expects a high-volume SKU ramp later this year.

The company launched its next gen AI accelerator Gaudi2 and its software platform security capability – Amber for AI driven continuous optimizations.
On an optimistic note, the company emphasizes the deals it has with Meta, Nvidia and AWS for its multi-year and multi-generational compute expansion.

Source: Counterpoint Estimates, Company Earnings

Network and Edge (NEX) segment provides some green amidst the deep red CCG and DCAI revenues

Revenue grew 11% YoY at $2.3 Bn with Xeon D (processor for Network & Edge) and Mount Evans helping to drive the revenue as leading network companies adopt the product into their network infrastructure.

Accelerated Computing Systems and Graphics (AXG) revenue grew 5% with software issues delaying some launches

The AXG revenue stood at $186 Mn representing a 5% increase in revenue YoY.

The company is poised to miss its target of 4-million-unit shipments in 2022 but to achieve a target of $1 bn in revenues. The Intel Art GPU series remained the revenue driver.
Intel Arc A5 and A7 Desktop GPU Cards were delayed due to software issues and will start shipping in Q3.
Data Center GPU – Arctic Sound has shipped to customers and the financial impact will be seen in the next two quarters.

Mobileye has its best ever quarter revenue at $460 Mn representing 46% YoY growth

Mobileye continued to outperform the market and increased its backlog by over 21 million units for the upcoming quarters. 16 million units were shipped in the first half of 2022. The company expects to add more customers and is extensively deploying capital for next generation ADAS products.

Intel Foundry Services (IFS) gains support and forms IFS Cloud Alliance to improve foundry design efficiency, time-to-market

The revenue of IFS was $126 Mn representing a 54% decline YoY due to lower mass tool sales as well as a revenue decrease in the automotive segment due to customer shortages in the automotive market.

The company has added $1 Bn in revenue pipeline for this quarter, including a new client – MediaTek – on Intel 16 node, making the revenue pipeline about $6 Bn in total.
The advanced node revenue pipeline remains undecided as the company is still working on test chips and design libraries to secure orders. The company is also expected to benefit from the recently passed CHIPS act from 2023 onwards and the industry wide transition to System and Package chipsets vis-à-vis a board chipsets.

Additionally, the IFS Cloud alliance was launched with leading cloud providers – Azure and AWS, and EDA tool providers – Ansys, Cadence, Siemens and Synopsys, to enable secure design environments in the cloud, improving design efficiency and accelerating the time-to-market for chips.

Outlook for Q3 2022 and FY 2022

Q3 revenue to decline 12-17% YoY to $15-$16 Bn and gross margin to be at 46.5%.
FY 2022 revenue to be in range of $65-$68 Bn down $8-$11 Bn from earlier guidance.
Capex reduced by $4 Bn from earlier forecasts to $23 Bn.

The capex reduction will directly impact the wafer fab equipment delivery and possible delays in fab expansion and capacity.

The primary reasons for the forecast revenue declines include – product roadmap delays in DCAI and software issues in AXG product segments. Dampened demand from desktop and notebook industry amid worsening consumer sentiment is also dragging on the revenue outlook.

The company has already indicated a not-too-good Q3 with some breathing room available from Q4.

Though, the company has reiterated its position is on track for its future nodes and product releases we believe the latter half-year launches will crystallize the current status of its advanced nodes and likely delivery of its future product roadmaps.

The uphill battle for Intel commences with its first earnings of 2022

Intel enters a year where Moore’s law has considerably slowed, supply chains are constantly under pressure from various macro and micro factors, PC demand corrects from the pandemic induced highs and growth rally momentum comes from mostly Cloud, Automotive and 5G.

Intel reported revenue of $18.4B, a decrease of 7% YoY, gross margin was down 4.8% YoY to 50.4%
Client Computing Group (Notebooks and Desktop) was down 13% with Notebook Revenue declining significantly by 14%
Datacenter & AI Group remained the key growth segment for revenues for company with 22% YoY growth in revenues supported by Network and Edge Group with 23% YoY growth, Accelerated Computing & Systems with 21% YoY increase and Intel Foundry Services up by 175%
Foundry capacity and Equipment to remain tightened till 2024

Segment Reports:

Client Computing: Consumer and Apple headwinds chip away $1.4B from the Client Group

The desktop revenues stood at $2.6B and notebook revenues were at $6.0B indicating a decline of 5% and 14% YoY respectively. The decline was majorly attributed to inventory digestion cycle and demand waning due to Covid-driven situations. Ramp down on Apple CPU and modem business in addition to muted demand from education market segment contributed to the significant decline in revenues.

The only offset came from increased ASP pricing across segments with 32% increase in Notebooks and 7% increase in Desktop segment.

The Client computing group will see muted demand for the year because of the inflationary environment, supply chain constraints and inventory realignment by OEMs to reflect the intrinsic demand minus the Covid induced spike.
Gaming and Enterprise Tech Refresh are the two trends that will help the group revenues to surf and stabilise.
The product roadmap in later half of year will see intensive competition due to Raptor Lake and AMD Ryzen 7 hitting the markets.

Datacenter and AI (DCAI) proves to be The Revenue Guard for year 2022

DCAI revenue was up $1.1B or 22% at $6.0B due to continued demand from Hyperscalars and Enterprises. Hyperscalars are continuing to invest in DC infrastructures to enable their Metaverse ambitions whilst Enterprises are expanding and upgrading their infrastructure to sustain the data generation and providing analytics that is fast becoming a necessity from consumers.

Intel FPGA based IPUs also contributed to the growth where volume adoption is present at the major cloud players and the demand continues from peripheries including Networking and Automotive DCs.

A 3% ASP decrease was observed in segment and 26% volume increase due to product and customer mix indicating majority of sales from Intel Xeon Silver/Bronze.

We think that majority of sales went to enable the ‘Edge’ infrastructure.

This is the year of Datacenters and Cloud as reinforced by every chip and cloud company in their revenue forecasts. The demand will be coming from Hyperscalars, and Enterprises expansion accelerated by the supercomputing efforts from the companies, SaaS adoption and cloudification of consumer services.
Company’s Edge to Cloud chip portfolio offerings will help capturing the demand coming from the Edge and Networking market as 5G network deployments and MEC becomes more widespread
With the acquisition of Granulate (SaaS service that improves performance in cloud costs with its autonomous dynamic optimization service to unmodified customer workloads) – the company’s SW stack combined with HW would provide additional revenue streams

Network and Edge (NEX) segment rolls due to the ’Edge’ Expansion

NEX revenue was $2.2B up 22% YoY. Demand drivers for the segment came from cloud networking hardware and software tools.

The networking segment will strengthen as company has focused on launching silicon for software defined infrastructure – vRAN and ORAN for Network and Edge capturing the upcoming high-volume deployments from operators
Upcoming Sapphire Rapids can prove to be a breakthrough for Intel to establish its leadership as it claims to deliver up to two times capacity gains for vRAN and support advanced capabilities like high-cell density for 64T64R Massive MIMO

Accelerated Computing Systems and Graphics (AXG) revenue is at $219M

Intel marked its foray into Discrete Graphics with its Intel A series of mobile GPU which was launched in Spring this year. The Desktop GPU are expected to be launched in Market this summer. Company is expecting to do $1B+ business this year as it scales the range at Data Centre level with Ponte Vecchio.

Intel is entering highly competitive market where Nvidia reigns supreme. The company has launched only one Variant – Intel ARC for Mobile so far with 50+ design wins. The variant has performed well but it will take more time for Intel to get the mind share and the wallet share it is expecting! The other variants would be launching this summer and we sincerely hope that Intel promises on the momentum it has indicated for its AXG business.
The launch of Blockchain accelerator would help in capturing the peripheral accelerator business which is dominated by mostly DIYs or Nvidia
The resonance of synergies from having its own CPU+GPU+I/O and in-house foundry coupled with its proprietary SW technologies – Evo & XeSS would help Intel to produce inspiring performances from devices because of component efficiencies in the long run.

Mobileye logs record revenues at $394M

Mobileye grew 17% YoY to have its best quarter in earnings. The company has successfully demoed L4 robotaxi in Jerusalem and grew its number of testing sites to 10 cities across 3 continents with addition of Miami and Stuttgart. The commercial robotaxi services will commence at the end of 2022 in Munich and Tel Aviv.

The much-awaited IPO might debut later this year but Intel has so far kept to its delivery and promise schedule regarding Mobileye products
The revenue would probably see a considerable spike later this and early next year as the consumer and commercial L4 vehicles enter mass production

Intel Foundry Services (IFS) is on a promising start with $5B in deal value across nodes

The revenue of IFS was $283M. The team has 10 opportunities for its process and package offerings representing over $5B in deal value. The team has over 30 test chips for Intel 16 and is expecting Intel 3 and Intel 18a customer test chips to tape out later in 2022.

From foundry perspective the progress looks very optimistic considering on Intel 4, Meteor Lake has successfully booted and pre-production wafers have commenced on Intel 3.

The company also commented that it has enough substrate and Fab supply to meet customer’s demand.

The behemoth task of delivering 5 nodes in 4 years remains the crucial aspect to Intel for its every business. So far it looks like everything is going good for them but as the tape-outs occur for Intel 7 we would have better visibility on the yields.
Considering the past, we are cautiously optimistic on the outcome on the node delivery as the Wafer Equipment manufacturers have started flagging the delivery timelines.

ESG Commitment Updates: Intel announced initiatives to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions and develop more sustainable technology solutions by identifying greener chemicals, new abatement equipments, including using 100% renewable energy across their global operations by 2030 by investing $300M to achieve 4B KWh of energy savings and achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions in their global operations by 2040.

Outlook for Q2 2022

Company is expecting $18B for Q2 2022, a 3% decrease YoY as the inventory burns happen and the company readies itself for inventory reversals due to launch of Raptor Lake and Sapphire lake. But for Q2 the client computing will remain muted due to the macro factors heavily influencing consumer sentiments.

Top 10 Automotive Announcements at CES 2022

The annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) held this year from January 5 to 7 saw attendance from tech companies from various domains such as 5G, IoT, blockchain, automotive, wellness, sports, entertainment, healthcare, smart home, robotics, augmented reality (AR), gaming, devices and manufacturing. The resurgence in COVID-19 cases forced the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) to cut short the event by one day. Moreover, several large companies, including BMW, Mercedes-Benz, AMD, Panasonic, Intel, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, General Motors and OnePlus, skipped this in-person event citing rising COVID-19 cases.

At this year’s CES, players in the automotive ecosystem mostly focused on electric vehicles (EVs), connected cars, autonomous mobility, digital cockpit, infotainment, robotics and shared mobility. This trend is in line with the industry shift towards CASE (Connected, Autonomous, Shared/Services and Electrification).

Here are Counterpoint analysts’ top 10 automotive announcements from this year’s CES:

1. Samsung showcases future of in-vehicle experience

Samsung used CES to showcase its vision for in-vehicle experience. Interestingly, it uses cameras with sensors to analyze the vehicle’s surroundings. Tesla was among the first to use a camera-based autonomous driving system instead of LiDAR. With the expertise and capabilities it acquired with its HARMAN acquisition a few years ago, Samsung is betting big on the automotive sector.

Moreover, AR will help passengers connect with a range of services while driving. For example, managing meetings through virtual calls, finding nearby places and navigating using map information. The focus on in-vehicle experience also helps Samsung leverage its existing relationships with automotive value chain players and capabilities.

2. Google exploring new capabilities with Android Auto

Google-powered Android Auto users will be able to access third-party integrated apps like Lyft and Kakao Mobility for micro-mobility; access to points apps like MochiMochi, Fuelio and Prezzi Benzina; navigation apps like Sygic and Flitsmeister; charging apps like ChargePoint and PlugShare; and parking apps like SpotHero and ParkWhiz. In addition, Volvo car owners will have access to content platforms like YouTube. The third-party integration will open new business opportunities for Google in the automotive industry.

Google is also bringing Android phone as a car service with BMW. Ultra-wideband (UWB) technology will be supported through Samsung Galaxy and Google Pixel phones. More Android phones will be able to use this technology later.

Google is powering OEMs to integrate the Google Home ecosystem through voice-enabled Google Assistant. Volvo will be the first to bring this feature for supporting remote actions.

3. Hyundai brings ‘Metamobility’

Hyundai is making a paradigm shift towards the future of mobility through concepts of “Metamobility” and “Mobility of Things”. It has joined hands with Boston Dynamics to build a robotic society where we will be able to freely move between real and virtual worlds. Hyundai envisions robots bridging the gap between real and virtual scenarios such as Metaverse.

4. Volvo to enter self-driving car race

Volvo is rolling out a self-driving system called Ride Pilot for California-based customers. The company is already testing autonomous driving (AD) in Sweden, so we can expect Volvo to launch this system for the European market soon. This product is equipped with Luminar’s Iris LiDAR and AD software from Zenseact. Ride Pilot will be available as an add-on subscription. However, Volvo is yet to decide the cost for this solution. We can expect strong competition between the use of camera and LiDAR in autonomous vehicle (AV) applications.

5. Stellantis teams up with Amazon for next-generation smart cockpit

Stellantis announced an extensive partnership with Amazon to develop a next-generation STLA Smart Cockpit. Amazon will help Stellantis build cloud solutions and provide training to Stellantis engineers and developers. Like Google, Amazon will also integrate smart home ecosystems with vehicles through an Alexa-enabled voice assistance system. Stellantis has also collaborated with Amazon in the past to provide Amazon Fire TV services to the Jeep Wagoneer 2022 version. Stellantis is trying to increase revenue from software services and Amazon will help Stellantis focus on the infotainment market. The rivalry between Google and Amazon will expand from the smart speaker market to the automotive infotainment market in the future.

6. Sony to form a new entity to focus on EV business

Sony’s business diversification plan has pushed it to explore the EV domain. At CES 2022, it made several announcements and also showcased an SUV-type EV prototype (VISION-S 02). Sony will use its expertise in entertainment systems to provide a better experience in the mobility entertainment space. Sony had previously shown a VISION-S prototype at CES 2020, but this time it is strengthening its efforts toward e-mobility by forming a new entity named Sony Mobility Inc. Prior to Sony, other big smartphone ecosystem players such as Vingroup, Foxconn and Xiaomi had also announced their entry into the EV space.

7. Mobileye cracks new deals with Volkswagen, Ford, Geely

Intel’s autonomous driving unit Mobileye has entered a partnership with Volkswagen to use its mapping data in upcoming models. Mobileye will also help Ford enhance future variations in its BlueCruise driver assistance system. Geely-owned EV brand Zeekr also plans to use Mobileye’s expertise in mapping and sensing solutions in a level-4 AV, which is expected to debut in China by 2024.

By the end of 2021, cumulative EyeQ chip shipments had crossed the 100-million mark. Mobileye is different from others as it provides both hardware and software products in the AD space.

8. Qualcomm partners with Renault, Volvo, Honda for digital transformation

Renault has tied up with Qualcomm to bring digital transformation through Snapdragon Digital Chassis. Volvo will also take help from Qualcomm under the digital chassis program to enhance its infotainment systems for cars under the Volvo and Polestar brands. Honda too will use a similar type of solution that may become available in the US during the second half of 2022. Qualcomm is slowly transitioning itself from “mobile” to “mobility” player.

For a detailed analysis of Qualcomm’s automotive announcements, visit the following blog:

Qualcomm in Driver’s Seat to Shape the Future of Mobility

9. VinFast to launch level 2+ cars with ZF’s help

VinFast, an automotive start-up from Vingroup, is planning to launch autonomous driving and level 2+ functions from the middle of 2022. ZF will supply radars, cameras, LiDAR sensors and central control units for this project. Initially, VinFast is targeting North America, China and Europe for its all-electric premium VFe35 and VFe36 models. VinFast aims to bring luxury features at affordable prices, which may redefine the automotive industry going forward.

10. GM makes series of announcements from EVs to AVs

General Motors made headlines with the announcement of the Chevrolet Silverado EV pickup truck, which is expected to take on Tesla’s Cybertruck, Ford Motor’s F-150 and Rivian’s R1T.

GM subsidiary BrightDrop, which debuted a year ago, has established clients including Walmart and FedEx.

GM CEO Mary Bara also announced to launch the Equinox EV for around $30,000 by 2023. If Tesla fails to launch a $25,000 vehicle by 2023, it will see strong competition from GM, especially in North America.

GM is also planning to take on Tesla’s FSD with its Ultra Cruise, which is currently under development. GM is working with Qualcomm to help develop its AV business.

These announcements indicate that GM is now serious about the EV and AV segment. Moreover, it wants to regain its No. 1 position in the US passenger and light commercial vehicle market.

Top 10 Automotive Announcements in CES 2021

Like the past few years, automotive players used the 2021 edition of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), organized from January 11 to 14, to showcase new technologies, launch products and announce partnerships. This year’s CES, which went all-digital due to the COVID-19 pandemic, was majorly focussed on electric vehicles (EVs), 5G connectivity, digital cockpit, artificial intelligence (AI) and autonomous vehicles (AVs). Moreover, COVID-19 has failed to dent the OEMs’ (original equipment manufacturers’) plans.

Here are Counterpoint analysts’ top 10 automotive announcements from this year’s CES:

1. Mercedes-Benz unveils a 56-inch ‘Hyperscreen’

As the cars are becoming smart, the need for a bigger screen is increasing for communicating and checking all the real-time vehicle data. Moreover, this 56-inch OLED Hyperscreen provides various functions like infotainment and personalized display. The screen is supported by eight CPU cores, 24GB RAM and 46.4GB/sec RAM bandwidth which helps reduce screen response times. In the era of the digital cockpit, MBUX (Mercedes-Benz User Experience) will slowly become the backbone of Mercedes-Benz vehicles, making the car more intelligent.

2. GM reveals an ambitious EV plan and a flying car concept

With the concept of flying Cadillac eVTOL, GM has joined the race for capturing the flying car market with other automakers like Hyundai, Toyota and FCA Group. Flying car testing projects have just started around the world and we will have to wait till after 2025 to get a good perspective on the topic.

GM launched BrightDrop, a new business unit for commercial EVs, aiming to build a first-to-last-mile EV ecosystem for logistics companies. This concept is not new, but there is huge potential for this market. GM may face stiff competition from other players working in this segment, like BYD, Rivian and Workhorse Group.

After a poor performance in the past few years, GM is repositioning itself and just changed its logo to reflect its EV focus. The company is spending $27 billion on EVs and AVs, targeting to launch 30 EV models by 2025. GM is also working on a battery technology called Ultium. These moves show GM’s seriousness towards its electrification goal and signal its strong comeback in the automotive market.

3. Panasonic unveils augmented reality (AR)-based heads-up display (HUD)

Panasonic unveiled an AR-based HUD which utilizes PRISM (positioning, reflection, intuitive, zonal UX and mission control) process to provide accurate situational awareness. A 3D imaging radar captures full 180° forward vision up to 90 metres while the 4K resolution provides a crystal-clear video of highways. Eye-tracking technology and AI-driven positioning accuracy are the key features of this HUD, which is expected to enter the market in 2024.

4. Mobileye showcases plan for AV rollout

As a part of its plan to commercialize AVs, Intel subsidiary Mobileye is expanding its testing of AV fleets to Shanghai, Paris, Tokyo and New York (pending regulatory approval) after a successful run in Tel Aviv, Munich and Detroit. Mobileye is also working on new Lidar silicon chips (SoC), which are expected to enter the market by 2025. This SoC can simplify computing and reduce cost by a significant amount.

5. Here Technologies brings a new mapping-as-a-service offering and 3D city models for vehicles

Here Technologies introduced a unique mapping-as-a-service offering where enterprises will be able to create their own maps. EV players can personalize their route maps through this service to reduce the range anxiety problem among stakeholders.

Here also launched 3D city models for vehicles while announcing a partnership with Leia and Continental to bring cutting-edge experience to automotive players. 3D maps with AR/VR applications will increase accuracy in location mapping, will be more engaging and help in taking better decisions while driving.

6. Harman redefines in-car experience in the 5G era

Harman is aiming to put a gaming console, a recording studio, or even a concert hall experience into the vehicle to provide the best user experience. High-resolution OLED or QLED displays, 5G enabled TCU and TBOT, Harman’s audio technology and advanced haptics will come together to give the user an immersive experience.

Harman is also offering a creator studio experience inside a car. Automatic background noise cancellation, virtual assistant, user-friendly video set-up, interactive lighting and publishing tools are leveraged here to create content even while driving.

With the help of 5G, premium audio quality, cloud service and partnerships with concert organisers, Harman is bringing live concerts to the car. More partnerships are expected with content creators, service providers, app developers, OEMs and module players to improve the experience.

7. Gentex reveals full display rearview smart mirror

Gentex demonstrated an LCD-based industry-leading Full Display Mirror (FDM) with the bimodal functionality of acting as a mirror and display. FDM is a rearview mirror which can capture surroundings with better angle and stream on display. It can be easily integrated with a camera monitoring system (CMS). In the smart mirror mode, it can record video, which helps in avoiding accidents and in finding the reason for an accident in case it happens. FDM is still a key feature for premium vehicles. However, with the rising awareness of advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS), we will witness more penetration of FDM into mid-priced vehicles.

Gentex also exhibited a dimmable glass system, HomeLink car connectivity, Integrated Toll Module (ITM), an in-cabin sensing unit, and a smart lighting system. HomeLink is an embedded connectivity solution for vehicles which can perform functions like door lock, garage door opening, security, smart outlets, smart lighting and appliances. A vehicle integrated ITM helps users manage toll bills through a single solution, thus reducing traffic and improving efficiency in toll management. It has already entered partnerships with automakers and technology service providers for creating innovative solutions for customers. Gentex, one of the leading connectivity providers to automakers, is trying to bring a new concept to the digital cockpit and the coming autonomous age.

8. NXP announces BlueBox 3.0 AHPC development platform

NXP announced a new BlueBox 3.0 Automotive High-Performance Compute (AHPC) development platform which supports Level 2+ autonomous driving. NXP’s Layerscape LX2160A processor helps improve processing performance two times the previous generation of the platform while the S32G processor provides secured vehicle networking. As automakers will incrementally reach the full AV stage, this platform will help find near-term applications in Level 2+ and Level 3 automated vehicles. Since this platform is flexible and scalable, it can be updated with rising levels of autonomy.

9. Magna firms up EV and AV plan with a series of strategic pacts

Magna launched the LED-based Mezzo Panel for the Fisker ADAS panel. Mezzo Panel is a micro-LED and sensor-based polycarbonate panel which can be integrated into a vehicle body without affecting body aesthetics. Magna is also working on the Magna Vision Panel which is set to be showcased at the 2022 CES. Magna and Fisker are collaborating on building unique ADAS features and EV-sharing platforms.

LG Electronics and Magna have created a joint venture to concentrate on the electric powertrain market. In the CES last year, Sony surprised us by unveiling an EV prototype, Vision-S. In this year’s CES, Sony showed new videos of the Vision-S. Magna is one of the major partners for the Vision-S.

10. John Deere showcases VR technology for tractors

John Deere highlighted seed planting with the help of virtual reality (VR), AI and a camera system. A VR-based tractor will help improve precision during planting and work seamlessly in different environments. With the rising applications of 5G and IoT in the agricultural field, John Deere is attending the CES for the past few years. Besides showcasing major products and services in the passenger and commercial vehicle segments, the CES is also becoming a stage for unveiling products for small segments of the automotive industry, like farm equipment.

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New Entrants to Autonomous Vehicle Solutions Will Drive the Market in the Coming Decade

Autonomous driving is one of the most important applications for semiconductors in the next five years. The artificial intelligent (AI) chip in the autonomous driving system is the most critical component and also a new opportunity for SoC designers. Driven by Tesla, many vendors have joined the race to design chips for autonomous driving over the past few years. Both start-up companies (such as Cruise) that are good at artificial intelligence algorithms and giant chip vendors (such as Google, NVIDIA, Intel) want to take this chance to demonstrate their capability. However, the production of autonomous driving chips also requires huge investment and needs the understanding of chip design and manufacturing, so the companies that specialize in both have a greater advantage.

Figure 1: Design process for autonomous driving chips

The camera is a critical sensor for autonomous driving systems. The images/videos taken by the camera must be processed by artificial intelligence chips to identify and interpret the environment around the vehicle and then make decisions. Examples like the LKA (Lane Keeping System) in level 2 systems, can detect line markings, and control the vehicle to automatically drive centrally in the lane without human intervention. The processing power of the chip and the associated algorithms will determine the ability of the car to drive autonomously.

The autonomous driving system above level 3, uses more sensors (such as cameras, lidars, and radars) to reconstruct the 3D model around the car. The system automatically takes the corresponding action based on instructions from the system. When combined with data from all other cars in a fleet, the collected information can be used to continuously improve the algorithms, with updates being pushed to all cars that use the same drive systems.

Thanks to the improvement of semiconductor manufacturing technology, 40nm technology has been widely used to produce automatic level 2 autonomous vehicle chips. In order to meet the high-speed demand for level 2 and above, mainstream autonomous vehicle chips are also moving below 7nm which will also bring improvements both in cost and performance. The number of units per system is expected to increase with autonomy level because of the requirement for system redundancy and higher performance.

Figure 2: Autonomous vehicle chips unit sales forecast

Source: Counterpoint, Updated in January 2020

Solutions from Major vendors

Nvidia

NVIDIA announced the next generation of self-driving car platform DRIVE AGX Orin at GTC China 2019. It delivers 200 TOPS performance, seven times that of the previous generation of Xavier. DRIVE AGX Orin is expected to begin mass production in 2022 on Samsung’s 8nm LPP process which will be quite mature in 2022. According to NVIDIA, the platform will use two DRIVE AGX Orin and two GPUs to achieve Level 5 autonomy. This solution can achieve 2000 TOPS, which is the highest of all solutions announced, but at the cost of 750W power consumption, enough to significantly dent the range of electric vehicles. NVIDIA is leading at computer vision, and it also believes level 5 can be achieved by using cameras as the principal sensor; although NVIDIA’s solution also supports lidar and other sensors.

Mobileye

Mobileye was acquired by Intel in March 2017 and is currently the company that sells the most autonomous driving chips. Mobileye launched the fifth-generation SoC “EyeQ5” for fully autonomous driving at CES 2018. EyeQ5 is expected to begin mass production on a 7nm process in 2021. EyeQ5 can achieve 24 TOPS at a power consumption of 10 W, supporting autonomous levels 4 and 5. Intel plans to combine EyeQ5 with the “Intel Atom” processor and develop its AI computing platform for autonomous driving. Although Mobileye is adamant that the camera can achieve full self-driving, EyeQ5 can also support radar and lidar. EyeQ5 can also perform sensor fusion to process the data from various sensors. Intel and Mobileye believe that two EyeQ5 SoCs and one Intel Atom processor are enough to achieve level 5 autonomous driving.

Qualcomm

Following in NVIDIA’s and Intel’s (Mobileye) footsteps, Qualcomm has launched its solution for autonomous driving, Snapdragon Ride in CES 2020. Qualcomm has long been supplying solutions for infotainment but is now applying its capability to the autonomous vehicle systems. However, the deployment of the autonomous system requires long-term data collection, cooperation with Tier 1 suppliers, sensor company support, and data training capabilities. NVIDIA and Intel (Mobileye) have a head start. Qualcomm has a long way to go but we’re still early enough in the development of autonomous systems that most of the market is still to play for.

This is a summary of Counterpoint’s research for autonomous vehicles SoC solutions in 2020. Please contact Counterpoint Research for the detail.

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A Promising Yet Challenging Market for Self-driving SoCs

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