Research on multi-domain computing: Summary of several ideas for cross-domain integration and discussion of product strategies

1. Discussion on Several Ideas and Strategies of Cross-Domain Integration of OEMs

As advanced autonomous driving places increasingly stringent requirements on computing power , communication bandwidth, software , and security, automotive electronic and electrical architectures are evolving from domain-centralized architectures to multi-domain integration and then to central computing architectures. At present, the main integration ideas for automotive multi-domain computing are as follows:

The central control domain integrates the body, chassis, power, gateway, etc.;

Digital chassis integrates intelligent driving, cockpit, etc.; cockpit fusion computing platform; quasi-central computing platform (One Box, mostly using multiple boards and multiple cores);

Central computing platform (One Box, mostly using a single board, equipped with one or more high-performance chips , using board-level interconnection technology).

Currently in the market, Leapmotor and Lantu Auto have evolved to the central computing platform, Xpeng has entered the quasi-central computing platform, and most manufacturers have also entered the domain fusion stage, among which the cockpit fusion computing platform has developed more rapidly.

Cross-domain integration ideas of some OEMs and Tier1

Source: Zoss Automotive Research "2024 Intelligent Vehicle Multi-Domain Fusion Computing Industry Research Report"

With the development of autonomous driving, cross-domain integration is inevitable, and OEMs are accelerating the implementation of cross-domain integration models.

Summary of cross-domain integrated mass-produced models of some OEMs

Source: Zoss Automotive Research "2024 Intelligent Vehicle Multi-Domain Fusion Computing Industry Research Report"

NIO Central Computing Platform ADAM

NIO's central computing platform ADAM cross-domain solution integrates two chips on the same circuit board . The central computing platform ADAM eliminates the need for encoding and decoding between different domains in the car, eliminating the need for encoding and decoding chips, power supplies , heat dissipation, wiring harnesses, etc., and directly replaces Gigabit Ethernet through the etched circuit on the circuit board. The cross-domain data bandwidth between the intelligent driving and the cockpit is greatly increased from Gigabit to 16G bps , achieving a more than 10-fold increase in transmission rate.

In addition, cross-domain computing power sharing can more reasonably allocate various large computing power needs, allowing the NVIDIA Orin X chip for smart driving and the 8295 chip for smart cockpit to solve the tasks they are good at.

Nezha Auto Haozhi Supercomputer XPC-S32G

In June 2024, Nezha Auto, NXP , Hirain Technologies, and Wind River jointly released the first converged gateway domain control product: Haozhi Supercomputing XPC-S32G. This product will be first equipped with the new Nezha S model and will be launched in the second half of 2024.

Haozhi Supercomputing XPC-S32G is built based on the growable electronic and electrical EEI architecture of Nezha Automobile Shanhai Platform:

Equipped with NXP 's high-performance S32G3 automotive network processor based on Arm Cortex-M7 and Cortex-A53 ; equipped with Wind River's advanced RT-Linux operating system solution;

Equipped with a service-oriented SOA software architecture built on a powerful integrated development environment .

Nezha Automobile plans to use the Haozhi supercomputer XPC-S32G as the backbone of the vehicle network system and the service-oriented SOA architecture. The system can be understood as the "hub" of the in-vehicle communication backbone network, with nine functions including central gateway, vehicle thermal management, battery energy management, power torque management, remote diagnosis, calibration, full data collection , SOA-type service gateway, edge computing and OTA Master. It can realize the interconnection of highly secure cross-domain functional data and automotive network security defense, and is responsible for vehicle control management to ensure that information is output with extremely low latency, and has the ability to iterate vehicle functions in the future.

II. Tier 1 suppliers’ cross-domain integrated products: layout from multiple dimensions such as cabin-berth integration, cabin-pilot integration platform, central domain control platform, quasi-central computing platform, and central computing platform

Product development direction (1): Integration of cabin and driving domains + functional domains (gateway, network connection, body, chassis, etc.)

Multi-domain fusion computing is an inevitable trend in the development of automobile intelligence . It can simplify the electronic and electrical architecture of the whole vehicle, improve computing efficiency, and significantly reduce the cost of the solution. Since 2024, OEMs have gradually implemented cross-domain fusion architectures and gradually iterated to the central computing platform. Tier 1 suppliers have also deployed many products in cross-domain fusion solutions. These solutions mostly adopt the following three methods, namely, single-chip (One SoC) fusion solution, whole machine (One Box) fusion solution, and single board (One Board) fusion solution. Judging from the current layout of suppliers, most of them are single-chip cockpit + intelligent driving fusion solutions.

However, the Chinese market has high requirements for ADAS capabilities, and the iteration of autonomous driving technology is very rapid. Therefore, in order to ensure the implementation of high-level autonomous driving, the solution often requires the configuration of high-performance cockpit SoC and high-performance intelligent driving SoC at the same time, that is, a single board or One box integrates two SoCs. In this direction, Tier 1 has also increased the research and development of cross-domain product solutions. Suppliers such as Ecarx, Junlian Zhixing, Autolink, PATEO, Continental, Desay SV, etc. have launched relevant cross-domain integration solutions.

Cross-domain integration solutions of some suppliers

Source: Zoss Automotive Research "2024 Intelligent Vehicle Multi-Domain Fusion Computing Industry Research Report"

Ecarx's cross-domain integration solutions are divided into two types: "cabin and parking" and "cabin driving". Among them, the single-chip "cabin and parking integrated" solution based on the "Longying No. 1" chip has been installed in the Galaxy E5 model for mass production and launched, realizing the integration of smart cockpit and automatic parking functions.

The cabin-driver fusion solution is planned to be mass-produced on vehicles in 2025 and is divided into two series:

One is a cost-effective solution for basic "cabin parking" functions, such as the "Car Brain® Antola Series", which uses the cockpit SoC Longying No. 1 with strong AI computing power . On the basis of the original cockpit capabilities, an additional 2MP binocular camera is installed to support the development of "cabin parking" functions, including HWA (highway assist), ALC (automatic lane change assist), APA (automatic parking assist), RPA (remote parking), DMS (driver monitoring system ), full-scene voice interaction, HMI (human-machine interface) and other functions.

The second is a high-performance solution for high-level "cabin, travel and mooring" functions, such as the "Car Brain Series", which integrates two high-performance SoCs, smart cockpit and smart driving, into a single board to achieve cabin-driving integration. Through the Ecarx Yunshan cross-domain software platform, computing power can be reasonably allocated to each required module, using PCIe high-speed data transmission , and the transmission efficiency is more than 10 times higher than the traditional one. With the high computing power of the two SoCs, it supports L2+ and above high-level autonomous driving functions to match the mainstream market's demand for high-level autonomous driving. At the same time, the scalable design of the overall architecture also provides better flexibility for the allocation of chip computing power in the future. The integrated software and hardware have greatly improved the development efficiency of the solution and significantly reduced the BOM cost of the solution.

Product development direction (2): Extending body electronics to central control, integrating digital chassis, power, new energy systems, etc.

Traditional body Electronic products Gradually develop cross-domain central Controller products, and further integrate with chassis, power, and new energy systems.

Take United Electronics as an example. In order to meet the hardware and software needs of customers in the new E/E architecture of future vehicles, United Electronics established the Cross-Domain Control Business Department (Advanced Connected Business Department) in April 2021. The department was integrated from the original Electronic Controller Business Department and Body Electronics Business Department. Starting in 2024, the organizational structure will be further integrated, and all low-voltage controller businesses will also be merged into the Cross-Domain Control Business Department.

The cross-domain business unit of United Electronics launched hardware products such as the vehicle computing platform (VCP), zone controller (Z ECU ), body domain controller and smart grid management module (PNG), as well as the USP software development platform based on service-oriented software architecture (SOA) .