In the automotive industry, the shift from combustion engines to electric is paving the way for software-defined vehicles. Yet, to empower this shift, the essential foundation lies in robust silicon support. The sector has emerged as a melting pot of innovation and chipmakers are sensing a new opportunity to capitalise upon.
Semiconductor companies like NXP Semiconductors, Texas Instruments and Intel have all announced new chips specially designed for automobiles at CES 2024. Moreover, fabless semiconductor companies like NVIDIA, Qualcomm and AMD, too, are making significant strides in this space.
Intel chips power over 50 million cars worldwide and now the company wants to help automobile companies run AI models in their cars. Qualcomm, on the other hand, wants to diversify its revenue stream by focusing on automobiles and reducing its reliance on the smartphone market.
The San Diego-headquartered company plans to make nearly USD 4 billion in the automobile segment by 2026.
Chipmakers not just want to power the cars of today, but the next generation of electric vehicles (EV). In a hybrid or an electric car, there is a significant surge in semiconductor content as it is more software-defined. Starting from the Engine Control Unit (ECU) to Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), there is a need for advanced semiconductor chips.
Moreover, many automobile companies are considering deploying AI models at the edge—running AI models locally within the car to support various functionalities. This again underscores the need for specialised chips tailored to meet these specific requirements.
AI chips for automobiles
At CES 2024, Intel announced a new system on a chip (SoC) designed to power generative AI features in the next generation of automobiles.
“We are bringing the AI PC to the car,” Jack Weast, vice president and general manager of Intel Automotive, told the press in a recent briefing. He revealed that Chinese EV company Zeekr will be the first to use Intel’s AI system on a chip to enhance the cockpit experience in their cars.
NVIDIA, which Intel competes with in the GPU space, is also making strides in the field, having announced an AI chip capable of unifying various in-car technologies, ranging from automated driving features and driver monitoring systems to enabling activities like streaming Netflix in the backseat. Named Drive Thor, the chip will enter production in 2025.
Sima.ai, a startup that has developed the industry’s first software-centric, purpose-built MLSoC (Machine Learning System on a Chip) platform, is taking its product to the world’s major Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs). The startup claims its chips perform exceptionally better than NVIDIA.
“While everyone today is talking about LLMs, the next transition in the industry is going to be large multimodal models (LMMs) and that I think is going to be the pervasive architecture that’s going to touch everything because it is the closest thing that we have come to in mimicking human capacity,” Krishna Rangasayee, founder and CEO at Sima.ai, told AIM.
We have seen automobile companies like Mercedez integrating ChatGPT, the popular chatbot developed by OpenAI, into its MBUX infotainment system last year. Around 900,000 US owners of models that use MBUX could opt into a beta programme.
At CES 2024, German automobile company Volkswagen announced that it would integrate ChatGPT with its infotainment system. Going forward, more and more automobile companies will look to power their infotainment system with an advanced LLM.
However, to run an AI model efficiently, even from an infotainment perspective, there is a need for specialised chips and chipmakers want to fill the gap.
Silicon to power ADAS
Moreover, Rangasayee believes the future of ADAS will be all based on AI/ML. Automobile companies today are already investing heavily in developing ADAS technologies, which play a crucial role in improving road safety by preventing accidents and reducing the severity of collisions.
Cars equipped with AI on the edge can perform complex computations onboard, contributing to a safer, more responsive, and personalised driving experience.
At CES 2024, Texas Instruments, a global semiconductor company that designs, manufactures, tests and sells analogue and embedded processing chips, at CES 2024 announced three chips designed specifically to power the next generation of automobiles.
One of the chips, which Texas Instrument calls the AWR2544, is designed to enable higher levels of autonomy by improving sensor fusion and decision-making in ADAS.
According to Mark Ng, sector general manager of hybrid and electric vehicles at Texas Instruments, the semiconductor company is rapidly innovating in this space to not just power the next generation of EVs, but to help the industry progress towards higher level of autonomy such as L3, L4 and L5.
In a recent interaction with AIM on the sidelines of CES 2024, Ng said that Texas Instruments, which is one of the top 10 semiconductor companies worldwide based on sales volume, is bringing its innovation to the top Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), be it in the US, Korea or Japan.
Dutch semiconductor design and manufacturer company NXP Semiconductor, at CES 2024, also announced a new chip designed for automobiles which supports advanced ADAS and autonomous driving applications. This includes advanced comfort features for SAE levels 2+ and 3, such as traffic jam assist, highway pilot and park assist, front and rear cross-traffic alerts, as well as lateral and rear collision avoidance.
Rapid innovation
Despite the slump in EV sales, the future of automobiles without a doubt will be electric. As OEMs make more and more EVs, it presents an opportunity for chipmakers to emerge as a leader and capitalise from the opportunities the sector represents.
However, with many companies innovating in the same space, the market is going to be increasingly dynamic, resulting in intense competition, which, from the market perspective, is a good thing. This also, at the same time, expedites innovation, as companies innovate faster to stay ahead of the competition.
