Qualcomm today unveiled its Snapdragon Elite platforms for automotive applications at its Snapdragon Summit.
Powered by Qualcomm Oryon – the corporate's fastest central processing unit (CPU) – these latest platforms are the most recent additions to the Snapdragon Digital Chassis portfolio (first introduced in 2022).
They are intended to bring intelligence into next-generation vehicles. Car manufacturers have the chance to do that
Use Snapdragon Cockpit Elite to power advanced digital experiences and Snapdragon Ride
Elite is meant to advance automated driving functions.
The unique flexible architecture also gives automakers the flexibility to seamlessly mix each digital cockpit and automatic driving functions on the identical SoC – an modern feature available with Snapdragon Digital Chassis solutions.
“Qualcomm Technologies stays on the forefront of innovation with platforms like Snapdragon Cockpit Elite and Ride Elite because the automotive industry evolves toward centralized computing, Qualcomm
software-defined vehicles and AI-driven architectures,” Nakul Duggal, group leader automotive, industrial and cloud at Qualcomm, said in a press release. “With our strongest compute, graphics and AI capabilities, coupled with industry-leading power efficiency and state-of-the-art software support for digital cockpits and automatic driving, these latest Elite Snapdragon automotive platforms meet the industry's need for increased computing power and enable automakers to reimagine themselves “to define automotive experiences for his or her customers.”
Ana Arnold, who works in product and technology marketing at Qualcomm, said in a product briefing that software-defined technology and AI are driving rapid change in cars. She noted that tons of of hundreds of thousands of vehicles on the road are already equipped with Qualcomm technology. The latest platforms offer versatility for each autonomous driving and cabin automotive systems – or each, through platforms that mix the various chips, Arnold said.
Unified architecture with higher AI performance
The dedicated Neural Processing Unit (NPU), designed for multimodal AI, provides a 12x increase in performance over previous cockpit platforms and enables real-time processing of external environmental and cabin data.
This advancement facilitates and ensures real-time decision making, adaptive responses and proactive support
personalized in-cabin experiences.
Mark Granger, senior director of product management, said in a press conference that the Snapdragon Cockpit Elite focuses on the inside of the cabin akin to the dashboard. The Snapdragon Ride Elite, then again, focuses on ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems) and autonomous vehicles.
“We are seeing the emergence of enormous language models and multimodal models which are capable of run at the sting,” Granger said. “We are subsequently more than happy about what we consider to be a significant leap in performance and performance.”
To date, LLMs have faced real challenges in understanding and responding to Chinese and Japanese speakers. New technology can now solve this problem. Granger said the corporate will not be yet disclosing the precise level of TOPS performance because it pertains to AI processing.
Equipped with transformer accelerators and vector engines in addition to mixed precision support, the NPU within the Snapdragon Ride Elite is designed to deliver high-precision and efficient end-to-end transformers with low latency while maintaining optimal power and performance.
The heterogeneous platform seamlessly runs multiple applications without sacrificing performance, offering exceptional concurrency and multitasking across quite a few cameras, sensors, wealthy user experiences, and advanced AI-enabled audio with virtualization.
Automakers can create configurable software-defined vehicles (SDVs) for all tiers, providing flexibility and scalability while simplifying vehicle architecture. This architecture ends in accelerated deployment schedules and ensures customers can benefit from the most recent innovations and features faster than ever before.
Qualcomm says the brand new chips are designed to deliver exceptional performance with minimal power consumption. This helps vehicles function smarter and longer. The solution is a mixture of intelligent power management hardware and software that balances core utilization and application runtime.
The chips are also designed for context-sensitive applications. This platform is designed to enable hands-free, unattended automated driving that anticipates needs, together with real-time driver monitoring and enhanced object detection for a smoother and safer journey.
The improved Adreno GPU is claimed to deliver a 3x performance increase with advanced rendering capabilities, meeting gaming, multimedia and dynamic driver information needs.
The platforms are also designed to fulfill automotive safety standards for ASIL-D systems, with a dedicated safety island controller and robust hardware architecture for isolation and trouble-free operation, helping to make sure reliable quality of service for certain ADAS Features ensure comfort and confidence of drivers and passengers.
Designed specifically for the industry's transition to SDVs, the Elite platform takes an end-to-end approach to increased security, protection and upgradeability through the unified software framework that emphasizes software reuse. Designed to assist automakers speed up feature development via a cloud-based workbench, streamline software development for continuous improvement, and reduce time to market for brand new features and services.
The automotive platforms also feature a robust, efficient camera system with a complicated image signal
Processor (ISP) for clear, responsive images in extreme driving conditions. They support over 40 multimodal sensors, including as much as 20 high-resolution cameras for 360-degree coverage and in-cabin monitoring, Arnold said. She identified that interior sensors at the moment are vital for detecting whether a driver is drowsy or not and that the automotive must do something about it, akin to sending an audible alarm.
Our platforms are compatible with the most recent and upcoming automotive sensors and formats and leverage AI-powered imaging tools to deliver optimized image quality for each an enhanced interior experience and advanced safety features.
The automotive platforms will leverage Qualcomm's software stack and support multiple operating systems. The Snapdragon Ride Elite platform is an end-to-end automated driving system with advanced features akin to vision perception, sensor fusion, path planning, localization and full vehicle control.
Snapdragon Cockpit Elite offers support for wealthy multimedia features, on-device AI with fully integrated Edge Orchestrator, optimized gaming and advanced 3D graphics for immersive user experiences, and has built-in security and long-term support features (API compatibility). Design.
The Snapdragon Cockpit Elite and Snapdragon Ride Elite will probably be available for sampling in 2025. As for the common cycle time in automotive design cycles, Granger said that point has definitely dropped over a few years (it used to take five years to get latest parts). built into cars) and continues to speed up, Granger said.
