Lingsheng's new mobile computing platform accelerates the rapid implementation of AIoT applications

The Internet of Things has become the largest growth point for semiconductor chip applications after the smartphone boom. According to an IDC market analysis report, China's Internet of Things market has broad growth potential. In 2022, it will surpass the United States to become the world's largest Internet of Things market, accounting for more than a quarter of the world's total Internet of Things. Based on this calculation, the scale of China's Internet of Things market in 2025 will be at least US$391.8 billion. The core application of the Internet of Things is the interaction between networks, devices and humans, and among them, vision-based Internet of Things applications are undoubtedly the top priority. Lingsheng Technology, which recently launched its first AIoT SoC chip JA310, has locked in on the smart Internet of Things visual application as the company's key target market for building a new mobile computing platform and a dual product line strategy of mobile communications and smart Internet of Things chips. By combining 5G+AI, it will provide more abundant and segmented applications in more industry application fields including smart transportation, campus safety, telemedicine, AR live broadcast, etc.

Deepen the development of AIoT products and strengthen the platform's intelligent connection capabilities

"Lingsheng Technology has been positioned to build a leading mobile computing platform with the support of the board since its establishment. This is a very broad platform that will cover two major businesses: mobile communications and smart IoT." Lingsheng Technology CEO Xiao Xiaomao pointed out in a recent media interview. Smart IoT will rely on its "pioneer" JA310 - this chip with powerful video signal processing, encoding and decoding capabilities and powerful graphics processing capabilities adopts a dual-channel professional-level monitoring ISP design, with a single channel supporting up to 4K@30fps resolution. The dual-channel ISP design especially supports dual-camera sensor applications to effectively expand the field of view and enhance picture details. It is suitable for distance measurement, monitoring optical zoom, dark light effect enhancement, infrared night vision, color restoration and face recognition.

The current IoT application intelligence has become the "standard configuration". As a new force, JA310 has strengthened the creation of AI functions in the chip architecture design. "In the past, various device connections were too large for data transmission, resulting in low system operation efficiency. In the future, edge computing only needs to transmit the most important feature information, which can reduce the burden on the network and cloud. Therefore, computing power is very important in various terminal smart systems such as smart cities, vehicle-mounted equipment, and robots." Xiao Xiaomao said. Aiming to build the core platform of AIoT applications, the AI ​​computing power of the JA310 chip is also one of its most critical features. The independent NPU with a hybrid computing power of 2Tops supports a variety of popular architecture AI models. Through the deep integration of ISP and AI algorithms, JA310 has given a powerful "brain" to video terminal applications that are increasingly emphasizing intelligence.

"An isolated AI device is worthless. Smart connection will be a better direction for Lingsheng to help society accelerate development." Xiao Xiaomao said, "We will make strategic investments with the support of shareholders. On the one hand, we will develop in a deeper direction in AIoT. At the same time, we have also started the development of the first mobile communication product and accelerated the layout of product lines. We will integrate the concept of mobile platform into product design, which will help us incubate a wider market."

Lingsheng is building a one-stop service of AIoT+Wi-Fi and AIoT+5G. Based on the development experience of JA310 of Samsung FinFET process, the company will launch a mobile communication chip solution to achieve seamless integration of AIoT and wireless connection. "Wired connection costs are high, wireless replacing wired is the future trend, and 5G+AIoT is our core layout." Xiao Xiaomao said. The emergence of 5G has realized the rapid transmission of data at the millisecond level, and can also make the device connection present an explosive growth, infinitely shortening the distance between people, people and things, and things and things.

Solve the challenges of fragmented market with ecosystem and support thousands of customers with refined design services

"As a latecomer established only two years ago, how can Lingsheng Technology win in the fiercely competitive industry environment? It is very important to build an industrial ecosystem. We will form a large ecosystem in terms of industrial layout. That is, we will not only make our own chips, but also integrate various upstream and downstream ecological resources into products to help our customers and help our ecological suppliers in various industries to bring their respective products to the market as soon as possible." "Xiao Xiaomao said the key to JA310's realization of its goal of the stars and the sea. In fact, the wave of artificial intelligence under AIoT has driven a large number of small and medium-sized enterprises and start-ups to enter, bringing a large number of industrial opportunities as well as many challenges. There are not many companies in the AIoT industry that can truly achieve complete product development from chips to complete machines. For most small and medium-sized enterprises, they are likely to be only good at certain aspects of R&D or market resources, such as a certain algorithm for specific industry applications.

"The AIoT industry is not as highly concentrated as the mobile phone industry. The market is highly fragmented. Many manufacturers are small and medium-sized enterprises. There are problems such as high time pressure for product market launch, limited R&D capabilities, and high R&D costs. We hope to launch more overall solutions based on the JA310 chip to continuously lower the entry threshold of this market." Xiao Xiaomao said, "For the software platform, we will extract the general needs of customers, develop a basic version, and carry different algorithm libraries on the general architecture to meet different market needs with different configurations." In Lingsheng's plan, it will not only provide chip products, but also provide a turnkey solution service package to help speed up the process of bringing customers' products to market and form the advantages of enterprise industrial ecological resource integration. Xiao Xiaomao hopes that Lingsheng's "turnkey service" will bring changes to the industry, greatly simplify the development process and difficulty of customers, and help products mature and go to market as soon as possible, which will be conducive to the rapid development of the entire industrial ecology.

In addition to the chip platform, Lingsheng is also determined to build a larger ecosystem in the direction of mobile computing platforms. "Mobile platform computing, edge computing, and AIoT technology, if done well, will form an ecosystem. How to integrate with the ecosystem is a very important issue," said Xiao Xiaomao. "On the one hand, we rely on continuous R&D innovation to establish better relationships with upstream and downstream partners; on the other hand, based on the needs of upstream and downstream partners, we will create an application platform with a wider range of applications. Because we are positioned as a platform supplier, we will promote applications widely, which is also one of our main directions."

In addition to the industrial ecology, support from the government has also played a major role in the construction of the ecology. "Chengdu is striving to become a demonstration center for 5G+AI. Lingsheng Technology will use our technological advantages to conduct in-depth development with the local government and the industrial chain in this regard." Xiao Xiaomao pointed out. He mentioned the application of smart transportation. At present, Lingsheng is building a solution for such target applications, and is expected to cooperate with local governments to implement it, providing a successful model for solving urban traffic congestion problems.

Summarize

As a new player in the AIoT and mobile communication chip market, the JA310, which was quickly released and is about to be mass-produced only two years after its establishment, demonstrates the strong strength of Lingsheng Technology in product development and integration of industrial ecological resources. The superimposed effect of industrial development represented by 5G, artificial intelligence, industrial Internet, etc. and national policy support provides a clear development direction and huge potential market for the development and application of AIoT based on video technology. It is worth waiting to see how Lingsheng will set sail in the "sea of ​​stars" of AIoT with JA310.