Mobileye Announces EyeQ Ultra: A Level 4 Self-Driving System In A Single SoC
Aimed for a 2025 release, the EyeQ Ultra is Mobileye's most ambitious SoC yet, and not just for performance. In fact, as a site that admittedly rarely covers automotive-related announcements, it's the relative lack of performance that makes today's announcement so interesting to us. But we're getting ahead of ourselves here; so let's start with the basics.
The EyeQ Ultra is Mobileye's seventh generation automotive SoC, and is designed to enable Level 4 autonomous driving – otherwise known as "high automation" level driving. Though not quite the holy grail that is Level 5 (full automation), L4 is the more immediate goal for automotive companies working on self-driving cars, as it a degree of automation that allows for cars to start, and if necessary, safely stop themselves. In practice, level 4 systems are likely to be the basis of robo-taxis and other fixed-location vehicles, where such self-driving cars will only need to operate across a known and well-defined area under limited weather conditions.
Mobileye already has the hardware to do L4 automation today, however that hardware is comprised of six to eight EyeQ chips working together. For the research and development phase that's more than sufficient – just making it all work is quite a big deal, after all – but as L4 is now within Mobileye's grasp, the company is working on the next step of productization of the technology: making it cheap enough and compact enough for mass market vehicles. And that's where the EyeQ Ultra comes in.
At a high level, the EyeQ Ultra is intended to be Mobileye's first mass market autonomous driving SoC, To accomplish this, Mobileye is designing a single-chip L4 driving system – that is, all of the necessary processing hardware is contained within a single high-end SoC. So when attached to the appropriate cameras and sensors, the EyeQ Ultra – and the Ultra alone – would be able to driving a car as per L4 standards.
The EyeQ Ultra includes 12 RISC-V cores and various accelerators. Intel acquired Mobileye in 2017 and is planning an IPO.
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Intel plans to take self-driving car unit public in the U.S. in mid-2022
Intel has announced that it plans to list Mobileye, the Israeli autonomous driving firm it acquired for $15.3 billion in 2017, as part of an effort to branch out into new markets.
The Santa Clara chip manufacturer said Monday that it plans to take Mobileye public in the U.S. in mid-2022 via an initial public offering of newly issued Mobileye stock. The IPO could value Mobileye at more than $50 billion, according to some reports.
Intel, whose share price has fallen from $68 in April to less than $50 in December, said the listing will create value for Intel shareholders. It added that it will remain the majority shareholder of Mobileye.
Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger hailed the acquisition of Mobileye as a success, adding that Mobileye's revenue will be 40% higher in 2021 than it was in 2020.
Intel CEO aims to build chip plants with money raised from Mobileye IPO
Gelsinger said Intel will retain a majority stake in Mobileye and will also receive "the majority of the proceeds" from the IPO. He declined to specify the size of the stake that would be sold or a fundraising target, but said that "certainly it will be helpful in our overall aggressive buildout of plants."
Intel has said it plans to build two chip plants in Arizona, and add other plants in the United States and Europe at sites that have not been announced.
Previously: Intel Buys Driverless Car Sensor Company Mobileye for $15.3 Billion
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Frosty Piss on Wednesday January 05 2022, @09:07PM (9 children)
I suppose there are some good use cases, but I enjoy driving.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 05 2022, @09:36PM
Same here. Maybe I'd think differently if I didn't have problems as a passenger. For people like myself, being in control of the vehicle allows us to mitigate motion induced panic attacks. For me, FSD is just an invitation to spend more money so I can be a passenger in my own vehicle, and freak out. No thanks.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Wednesday January 05 2022, @10:26PM (3 children)
FTFS:
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Frosty Piss on Wednesday January 05 2022, @11:05PM (1 child)
In other words, eliminating an entire tier of jobs for humans.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 05 2022, @11:32PM
Most taxi drivers aren't human.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Thursday January 06 2022, @05:37PM
I've seen that nonsense parroted even more than Trump's lies about the election. I don't use taxis now that I have to go to the trouble of actually driving, but I won't buy a car when it can drive itself? That's insane!
Yes, taxis will all be self-driving, but cars will never all be taxis. But they WILL be all self-driving. Driving in 2180 (give or take a few years). [mcgrew.info]
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 4, Interesting) by edIII on Thursday January 06 2022, @01:18AM (2 children)
I enjoy surviving. Airplanes typically have co-pilots for a reason. A single SoC, single system, being in charge of it all is just dangerous. Minimum three with consensus algorithms. I want two out of three robotic systems to agree to kill me, thank you.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Thursday January 06 2022, @05:42PM (1 child)
Over 90% of all auto accidents are from human error, and it can be some other car that runs a red light and t-bones you. It doesn't matter how good you drive, over 90% of drivers are witless morons reading their email or Facebook while they "drive".
When all cars drive themselves, vehicular carnage will drop by 90%. You seem to be poor at simple math.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 06 2022, @08:02PM
What did any of that have to do with redundancy of critical systems? I guess my math is rather simple. Two control systems in a hot-spare setup are better than one, in case one fails. Three control systems are better than two with consensus algorithms, in case there is a disagreement.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Thursday January 06 2022, @05:29PM
I enjoy driving.
Why in the hell would anyone actually ENJOY driving? You have to put up with witless morons, there's nothing more annoying than driving. I did enjoy driving when I was sixteen, how old are you, kid?
You do realize that over 90% of accidents are caused by human error, don't you? It doesn't matter how good a driver you are, a moron in another car can kill you.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Snotnose on Wednesday January 05 2022, @09:18PM
Make that several somebodies. First one to prove their chip/system reduces accidents/fatalities in court will grab the gold ring.
Only question is, will the winner be due to superior tech, or superior lawyering?
Relationship status: Available for curbside pickup.
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by DannyB on Wednesday January 05 2022, @09:25PM (1 child)
12 RISC-V cores?
And Intel didn't make them switch to 80286 ?
If you think a fertilized egg is a child but an immigrant child is not, please don't pretend your concerns are religious
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday January 05 2022, @10:17PM
If I'm not mistaken, it's 12 cores, 24 threads [cnx-software.com].
Intel is not afraid to use RISC-V:
Intel Will License SiFive's New P550 RISC-V Core [soylentnews.org]
Intel to use RISC-V in their Nios FPGA processor [electropages.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 06 2022, @02:10PM
oh well ... suppose the day is not far off where you as human driver alone will not be allowed to use the tax-paid public roads anymore ...
after mantatory remote "kill-switch" the next is mandatory A.I. self-driving co-pilot.
i guess they will also come with "snitch5000" where self-driving A.I. cars report if the car ping-ed doesn't respond with a co-driver A.I. on-board :(
so 2nd tiar tax will be on the A.I. co-pilot chip ... after paying taxes for public roads already.
so anybody wanting to get stuff from A to B ... well you get it. isolate at home then.