Samsung has announced that it will manufacture 5nm chips for Ambarella, a US-based edge AI fabless semiconductor company. Ambarella's CV3-AD685 is a new semiconductor chip that's designed to be an AI controller for autonomous cars. The South Korean firm says its new collaboration will help transform the next generation of self-driving cars.
Ambarella's CV3-AD685 is the company's first chip based on its CV3-AD family of automotive AI central domain controllers. Tier-1 automotive suppliers have announced they will create solutions based on the CV3-AD SoC. The new chip is based on Ambarella's next-generation CVflow AI engine, which is 20 times faster than its predecessor (CV2) and offers neural network processing. It is capable of general-vector and neural-vector processing used for 4D imaging radar, computer vision, deep sensor fusion, and path planning in ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems) for autonomous cars.
The chip features ARM Cortex A78AE and R52 CPU cores, an automotive-grade GPU (for visualization), a hardware security module, an advanced ISP to process camera inputs, and a dense stereo and optical flow engine. Its algorithm-first architecture supports the entire software stack used by Level 2+ to Level 4 autonomous cars.
Samsung Foundry's 5nm process is optimized for automotive-grade semiconductors and has tight process controls. It offers advanced IP for high reliability and traceability. Ambarella will depend on Samsung for its 5nm chips, as the South Korean firm has extensive experience in automotive foundry processes, proprietary technologies, and chip package development.
Fermi Wang, President and CEO at Ambarella, said, “Ambarella and Samsung Foundry have a rich history of collaboration, and we are excited to bring their world-class 5nm technology to our new CV3-AD685 SoCs. Samsung's proven automotive process technology allows us to bring new levels of AI acceleration, systems integration, and power efficiency to ADAS and L2+ through L4 autonomous vehicles.“
