Samsung’s Intros Exynos Auto V9 SoC: Octa-A76 Chip to Power Audi’s In-Vehicle Infotainment System
by Anton Shilov on January 3, 2019 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Automotive
- Samsung
- Arm
- Exynos
- Cortex-A76
- Audi
- Exynos Auto V9
- Exynos Auto
Samsung today rolled out its new Exynos Auto V9 SoC, announcing that the automotive-focused SoC will power Audi’s in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) system that will debut by 2021. Samsung’s first SoC for automobiles complies with Automotive Safety Integrity Level (ASIL)-B requirements, it integrates ARM’s latest CPU and GPU technology as well as supports multiple screens and cameras.
The Samsung Exynos Auto V9 packs eight Arm Cortex-A76 cores running at 2.1 GHz, but the company does not disclose whether it uses Cortex-A76AE designed specifically for automotive applications or just regular ones. On the graphics side of things, the SoC integrates three dedicated sets of Arm Mali G76 GPUs (i.e., that can work completely separately) to drive cluster display, central information display (CID) and rear-seat entertainment (RSE) displays simultaneously. In addition, the processor features a (presumably custom) neural network processing unit (NPU) to process visual and audio data for face, speech, and gesture recognition. Besides, the Exynos Auto V9 four HiFi 4 DSPs for audio, and a safety island core to protect system operations in real time that supports ASIL-B standards. The chip can work with current-gen LPDDR4 as well as upcoming LPDDR5 types of memory.
Samsung’s first SoC for in-vehicle infotainment applications supports up to six monitors and 12 camera connections, which should be enough for advanced autopilot capabilities (just to put it into context: Tesla's AutoPilot 2.0 only uses one camera for autopilot right now), though since the latter will be implemented by Audi, Samsung does not make any comments on the matter.
Samsung will use its 8LPP process technology to manufacture the chip. Meanwhile, Audi will use the Exynos Auto V9 for its IVI system that is set to debut by 2021. In general, expect the SoC to power vehicles that will arrive in 2020 and later.
At present Samsung already supplies Audi with its OLED displays, so the new agreement is a natural extension of the partnership between the two companies.
Related Reading:
- Arm Delivers on Cortex A76 Promises: What it Means for 2019 Devices
- Arm Unveils Arm Safety Ready Initiative, Cortex-A76AE Processor
- Arm Announces Cortex-A65AE for Automotive: First SMT CPU Core
- Imagination Launches PowerVR Automotive Initiative, 8XT-A GPU IP
- Solving the Automotive Bandwidth Problem: Aquantia Partners with NVIDIA for 10GbE
Source: Samsung
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brakdoo - Thursday, January 3, 2019 - link
No comment on Audi stepping away from Nvidia Tegra?eastcoast_pete - Thursday, January 3, 2019 - link
+1 on the first comment. Audi/VW moving away from Tegra could mean several things. Has Nvidia decided to vacate this market and stopped development completely, or did Samsung make Audi an offer they couldn't refuse (and I mean price-wise, not Godfather). I thought Nvidia is investing heavily in autonomous driving, so loosing this foothold with a major car maker is not a wise strategy, unless they already made new alliances. For Samsung, this is a significant win: even if they don't make much or any money on the current deal, they now have a working relationship with a major car company. Those relationships and collaborations with the other side's engineering and development teams can be worth gold.brakdoo - Thursday, January 3, 2019 - link
Nah, I think that Nvidia just stopped developing infotainment (and this part is solely infotainment like tegra 3 before) stuff but they are still strong in assisted driving.Developing 10/8/7 nm chips costs a lot and I doubt that auto customers are enough to finance that. I am pretty sure Samsung doesn't need to care that much as it's their own fab plus they have other use cases for the dies like high-end TVs or tablets if needed.
brakdoo - Thursday, January 3, 2019 - link
Qcom is selling their 8xx Snapdragons also as certified car infotainment chips so I guess NV just had too much competition with usage other than just automotive infotainment and they got out of that business.IGTrading - Friday, January 4, 2019 - link
Nvidia kinda left Tegra out of the lime light. The company seems much less focused on this now, but they might be able to surprise everybody with a project kept undre wraps.Seeing competition going down is never a good thing.
I wonder if Tesla is going to announce its hardware platform based on AMD Zen ...
philehidiot - Saturday, January 5, 2019 - link
This is the "in-vehicle" infotainment system. The external "infotainment" is the standard of the driving of Audis which serves to inform you that the driver is an uncompromising cock whilst also entertaining you as they cut up and tailgate everyone in their path on their inevitable path to a high-speed crash / a ticket.No, I'm not being serious. But yes the driving of Audis is usually awful.
eastcoast_pete - Thursday, January 3, 2019 - link
@Anton: And, on another aspect and potential bombshell: Samsung uses ARM's A76 cores, not their own in-house Mongoose design? Wow! Did they see the error of their ways, nicely outlined in the deep dive by Andrei a few months ago? Unless the automotive and the mobile divisions of Samsung don't talk much among them, this might signal a sea change. Please follow up!Santoval - Thursday, January 3, 2019 - link
It's possible that this SoC will have Cortex-A76AE cores and Samsung has no plans to validate their Mongoose cores with ASIL-B+ for cars. So they just license the stock design from ARM, add a few blocks of their own and fab the SoC themselves.saratoga4 - Friday, January 4, 2019 - link
>And, on another aspect and potential bombshell: Samsung uses ARM's A76 cores, not their own in-house Mongoose design?Not at all surprising. It would have been more expensive to integrate their custom cores, and for infotainment there is no reason to do that.
levizx - Friday, February 15, 2019 - link
What bombshell? Samsung use cheaper readily-validated cores where single core performance is not that important power consumption is not very important and even Octa-A76 can run at full speed. Makes absolute sense.