Ambarella
Assembly Line
🇨🇳 Ambarella CEO: ‘Chinese OEMs Are Copying the Tesla Model’
Ambarella CEO Fermi Wang clarified to EE Times that revenue for Ambarella’s most recent CV3 automotive SoC family will come first, but not only, from China. “The reason is that Chinese OEMs and tier ones will take only 18-24 months to introduce a product versus 48 months anywhere else,” Wang told EE Times. “At IAA, German OEMs were shocked by how fast Chinese vendors have been able to [develop and] show EVs.” Chinese automotive OEMs move a lot faster than their European and American counterparts, according to Wang.
“From the development cycle point of view, Chinese companies are focused on getting things out quicker instead of the European approach to make sure everything is there, quality-wise, before it’s shipped, [though] we haven’t seen a quality issue so far,” he said. “The Chinese are copying the Tesla model [upgrading software over the air] rather than the German model.”
Continental and Ambarella Partner On Assisted and Automated Driving Systems With Full Software Stack
At CES 2023, technology company Continental and Ambarella, Inc., an edge AI semiconductor company, announced a strategic partnership. The two companies will jointly develop scalable, end-to-end hardware and software solutions based on artificial intelligence (AI), for assisted and automated driving (AD), on the way to autonomous mobility. The strategic collaboration builds on Continental’s announcement in November to integrate Ambarella’s energy-efficient System-on-Chip (SoC) family into its Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS). Compared to other domain controller SoCs, Ambarella’s “CV3-AD” chip family provides higher performance to process sensor data faster and more comprehensively for greater environmental perception and safer mobility, at up to five times higher power efficiency. The partners are combining Continental’s software and hardware expertise and broad portfolio of automotive system solutions with Ambarella’s computer vision know-how, powerful SoCs and software modules. In addition to the development of camera-based perception solutions for ADAS, Continental and Ambarella are focusing on scalable full-stack systems for Level 2+ up to highly automated vehicles. These full-stack solutions take a multi-sensor approach, including Continental’s high-resolution cameras, radars and lidars, as well as the associated control units and the required software. Vehicle manufacturers will be able to flexibly integrate the joint system solutions into their latest vehicle generations. In electric vehicles, the energy-efficient solutions reduce power consumption and cooling demands, contributing to a lower battery weight of several kilograms (estimated 6 pounds). This results in an increased average range of about 5-10 kilometers (3-6 miles) with the same battery capacity, based on a typical configuration. To serve the growing market for assisted and automated driving, while paving the way for autonomous mobility, the partners aim to have these joint solutions ready for global series production in 2026.