Horizon Robotics launches China's first automotive-grade AI chip, Journey 2, which is popular among automakers

In the next few decades, the new technology that is most likely to bring disruptive impact to the world is AI (Artificial Intelligence). All aspects of our lives will be affected by AI technology, and even many jobs will be replaced by AI. With the support of AI technology, cars will become more and more like advanced robots. They can not only drive automatically, but also detect the needs of passengers in the car in advance and make corresponding responses in time.

The prospects are certainly bright, but there are still many challenges to realize these applications that have only existed in science fiction movies. The most critical part is that AI technology requires more comprehensive and complete algorithms, as well as more powerful chips.

After experiencing the continued suppression of Huawei by the United States in the past year, I believe everyone is no longer unfamiliar with the chip industry. Although China still faces many bottlenecks in chip manufacturing, it already has impressive strength in chip design. Specifically in the field of automotive-grade AI chips, Horizon, founded in 2015, is a company that is worthy of attention. At the 2020 Beijing Auto Show, Horizon released the new Journey 3 chip, and the more powerful Journey 5 is about to be launched. At the application level, Horizon's automotive-grade AI chips have successfully signed double-digit mass production models.

Speaking of chips in cars, those who know a little about them may immediately think of Tesla's FSD chip, Huawei's MDC chip, or Qualcomm's 820A chip, Huawei's Kirin 710A chip. In fact, the former and the latter are two different chips. Tesla FSD and Huawei MDC are smart driving chips, targeting driving assistance or high-level autonomous driving functions; Qualcomm 810A and Huawei Kirin 710A are smart cockpit chips, targeting large screens in cars and various interactive functions. Horizon is unique in that it focuses on AI accelerated computing and can achieve multiple functions with one chip.

In August 2019, Horizon Robotics launched China's first automotive-grade AI chip, Journey 2, which was quickly sought after by automakers. This year, Changan Automobile and Horizon Robotics jointly developed an intelligent cockpit NPU computing platform based on the chip and installed it on the new car UNI-T. The Journey 2 chip enables Changan UNI-T to have in-car scene perception capabilities and can provide users with more accurate intelligent recommendations and intelligent vehicle control services based on the perception results.

AI technology is widely used in Changan UIN-T. When the central control screen is off, you can wake it up by looking at the screen for 1 second. When approaching a high-speed exit, the vehicle uses line-of-sight tracking technology, combined with information such as turn signals, steering wheel angle, and vehicle speed, to determine whether the driver is distracted and give a prompt reminder. The vehicle can identify the frequency of blinking and yawning, determine the level of fatigue driving, and give a prompt reminder to the driver. This is inseparable from the support of the Journey 2 chip.

Later, Chery's new pure electric SUV Ant was also equipped with the Journey 2 chip. In this car, the Journey 2 chip plays the role of an intelligent driving chip, helping Chery Ant achieve L2+ level driving assistance functions.

Chery Ant will use Horizon's Journey 2 chip as the chip for ADAS advanced driving assistance functions.

The different functions of the same chip in different car models fully demonstrates the "one chip for multiple uses" feature of Horizon's chip. It is understood that Horizon's Journey series chips are platform chips that can be diversified through software to cover the application needs of many different scenarios. Manufacturers no longer need to make a customized chip for each detailed problem, and the R&D costs can be shared through a wider range of application scenarios. This is a concentrated expression of software-defined cars or software-defined hardware.

The Matrix intelligent driving environment perception solution based on the Journey chip can better support driving assistance and autonomous driving functions.

At present, Horizon has launched two automotive-grade AI chips, Journey 2 and Journey 3. The Journey 2 chip adopts a 28nm process technology, with a computing power of 4TOPS (trillion times per second) and a power consumption of 2W. The Journey 3 chip adopts a 16nm process technology, with a computing power of 5TOPS (trillion times per second) and a power consumption of 2.5W. It can support a variety of application scenarios such as high-level assisted driving, smart cockpit, automatic parking assistance, and crowdsourced high-precision map positioning. By forming a computing platform with multiple Journey 3 chips, it can also support L3 level autonomous driving functions. It can be seen that Horizon's chips are not outstanding in computing power. Its advantage lies in its very high computing accuracy, so the effective utilization rate of computing power is very high.

Horizon Journey 3's automotive-grade AI chip uses a more advanced process technology, with improved computing power and more powerful functions.

The Journey 5 chip under development will have a leap in computing power. Its single-chip AI computing power reaches 96TOPS, which can support 16 cameras. The autonomous driving computing platform composed of multiple Journey 5 chips has a computing power of 192-384TOPS, which can support L3-L4 autonomous driving.

Based in China, Horizon's products not only have certain advantages in cost and performance, but also can have closer cooperation with car companies, helping them to make good use of chips. Horizon not only provides chips, but also algorithms and development tools. Traditional suppliers may take more than half a month to give feedback on questions raised by car companies, but Horizon only needs half an hour. Based on these advantages, Horizon has full confidence in the future and has proposed a mass production installation target of 100,000 this year and more than 500,000 next year. In the longer term, Horizon will strive to occupy more than half of the market share in China's ADAS chip market.

Editor's comment: As cars evolve from traditional mechanical products to intelligent connected terminals, chips are destined to play an increasingly important role in cars. The rise of automotive chip companies such as Horizon Robotics will give Chinese automakers a certain advantage in future competition.