The drumbeat for the second half of the decisive battle for automotive intelligence has begun.
On the one hand, smart cockpits are moving towards the 3.0 era, and domain-centralized architecture and multi-domain integration have become new market trends.
On the other hand, software is becoming an important means for car companies to build differentiated products and will become an important part of car companies' profits in the future. Against this background, the demand, development scale and overall complexity of automotive software development have increased significantly, and the traditional development model of binding automotive software and hardware is being broken.
All this indicates that the entire automotive industry ecology and core supply chain structure are accelerating reshaping. Whoever can complete the integration of the industry chain as quickly as possible and provide modular and platform-based full-stack solutions will have the opportunity to become the leader in the next smart car era.
On August 30-31, the 2023 (First) Gaogong Intelligent Automotive Software and Network Security Forum and the 15th Cockpit Auto Connected Developer Conference were held in Shanghai. The Gaogong Intelligent Automotive Research Institute issued the "2023 Smart Car Software ·Network·Cockpit Car Connectivity Top 10 Competitive Suppliers》.
As one of the few suppliers in the world that has truly completed a full-stack software and hardware solution from hardware platform, operating system to upper-level human-computer interaction system, Yikatong Technology successfully won the "2023 Smart Cockpit Software and... System TOP10 Suppliers" honor.
At the same time, the ECARX Cloudpeak Safety safety real-time operating system self-developed by Yikatong Technology also won the "Annual Self-developed Innovation Benchmark Award for Vehicle Intelligent Operating System" issued by Gaogong Intelligent Vehicle Research Institute.
So, why was Yikatong Technology able to win two major awards from the Advanced Intelligent Automotive Research Institute at the same time? Facing the second half of automobile intelligence, what are the competitive advantages of Yikatong Technology?
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Based on hardware, all-round protection of cockpit "safety"
In the past few years, under the general trend of automobile intelligence, smart cockpits are moving from the early single-function digitization, intelligence, and networking to a new stage of computing power domain control, more human-computer interaction functions, and deep integration.
For this reason, smart cockpits have increasingly higher requirements for the computing power of main control chips. Consumer electronics chip manufacturers represented by Qualcomm and MediaTek are rapidly entering the field of automotive smart cockpit chips.
However, the actual application scenarios of consumer electronic devices such as mobile phones and automobiles are quite different, and their requirements for safety are different. For example, in terms of hardware, the development of automotive chips is more difficult, the process technology is more complex, and the requirements for safety and reliability are more stringent, and it needs to pass reliability testing and obtain AEC-Q100 certification; and in terms of software, Automotive chips also need to comply with functional safety standards ISO26262, ISO 21448 expected functional safety, ISO 21434 automotive network security and other certifications.
Yikatong Technology has accumulated mass production experience of 5.2 million smart cockpit products and always adheres to the bottom line of safety. In the latest smart cockpit computing platform "ECARX Antora (ECARX Antora) series computing platform" released by ECARX Technology, its core SoC chip adopts the country's first car-grade 7nm smart cockpit SoC - —Dragon Eagle One.
Yikatong Antola 1000 computing platform
This chip originates from Xinqing Technology, a company jointly established by Yikatong Technology and ARM China. Unlike the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8155 cockpit chip derived from the smartphone platform, Longying One is a "born for cars" A car-grade smart cockpit chip. At the beginning of its design, the chip used "hard isolation" inside the CPU to isolate an independent "safety island" that can ensure real-time performance and security. It consists of two dual-redundant chips. It is composed of an ARM Realtime R52 core with an interlocking architecture, and is paired with ECARX Cloudpeak Safety, a secure real-time operating system designed and developed by Ekatong Technology for the field of automotive software functional safety, to provide ASIL-D-compliant functional safety assurance for smart cockpit systems.
ECARX Cloudpeak Safety safety real-time operating system
Specifically, ECARX Cloudpeak Safety has bright functions such as space monitoring, time monitoring, logic monitoring and communication monitoring, which can provide safety guarantee for smart cockpit & automatic driving system in all aspects.
Taking time monitoring as an example, ECARX Cloudpeak Safety monitors whether each task is called and runs within the expected time by checking the entry and exit of the task function (check-in), so as to avoid the occurrence of conflicts between software components. Problems of run blocking, deadlock, livelock, and incorrect allocation of run time.
In addition, it needs special mention that "since Qualcomm 8155 is a car-grade upgrade based on mobile phone chips, the chip itself does not support system solutions that comply with the ISO26262 functional safety standard." Some industry insiders bluntly said that Tier 1 is an important part of the entire mobile phone chip. In the design of domain controllers, an MCU is often plugged into PCIe to ensure the functional safety of the entire system.
However, in a supply "shortage" environment, this design not only increases the BOM cost, but also increases the risk of "supply interruption", and the way to achieve functional safety is essentially different from the main chip's inherent "safety island".
"Global" layout to create the ultimate cockpit experience
1. From hardware to software, give full play to synergy effects
Currently, car companies including BMW, SAIC, NIO, Xpeng, and Ideal are all upgrading their smart cockpit systems and are beginning to focus on upgrading the interactive experience of all passengers in the car. Smart cockpits are moving towards the 3.0 era.
In the past few years, smart cockpits have mainly been a "stack" of functions, which has led to the emergence of problems such as "fragmentation" of user experience. But in the 3.0 era, the entire smart cockpit market has entered a new cycle of differentiated operations centered on user experience, with the focus being on cross-domain collaborative intelligent fusion function experience.
Behind this, the "combination of soft and hard" is extremely important. Shen Ziyu, chairman and CEO of Yikatong Technology, once said, "The high degree of integration of software and hardware can not only affect the release and display of chip computing power, but will ultimately affect the performance of the entire cockpit system."
As we all know, among multi-core heterogeneous smart cockpit SoC chips, advanced processes do not necessarily mean high performance. The most important thing is: how to maximize the system capabilities of the chip. For example, Apple's A-series chips are integrated with Apple software iOS, but they can produce a "1+1>2" effect.
Therefore, while ECARX Technology is creating a series of highly integrated smart cockpit computing modules, it has also simultaneously created a supporting ECARX Cloudpeak cross-domain system capability base. This software platform includes self- developed Virtualization technology, operating systems, functional safety software, information security software, AI components, audio enhancement components, etc. can maximize development efficiency and reduce costs and R&D difficulty for partners.
ECARX Cloudpeak cross-domain system capability base
However, Yikatong Technology’s pursuit of creating high performance and ultimate user experience does not stop there. In addition to completing the collaboration of software and hardware vertically, Yikatong Technology will also open up the mobile phone domain horizontally and complete the cross-domain interaction and integration of the experience layer. In the future, Yikatong Technology will have an exclusive strategic cooperation with Xingji Meizu to jointly develop the Flyme Auto unbounded ecosystem.
2. From cars to mobile phones, build an intelligent integrated experience
The intelligence and entertainment of the car cockpit have higher and higher requirements for the computing power, bandwidth, and software of the cockpit, which has led to a continuous increase in the cost of the cockpit domain controller, such as the cost of software and hardware for the car-machine chip, and the high authorization of application ecological access. Fees, 5-6 OTA costs per year. Even so, the performance and ecology of smart cockpits have always been inferior to mobile phones. Therefore, opening up the mobile phone domain has become an inevitable trend, and various brands have successively supported the mobile phone domain.
The smart cockpit system developed based on the ECARX cockpit series computing platform + Flyme Auto solution can realize the seamless connection between mobile phones and vehicles, cross-domain collaboration, ecological sharing, data interoperability and electronic hardware equipment sharing.
Li Shufu, founder of Xingji Meizu Group, said: "Technical innovation and ecological integration between the consumer electronics industry and the automotive industry is imperative. In the future, the two industries of smart cars and smartphones will no longer go their own way, but will be multi-user-oriented. An integrated relationship between terminal, full scene, and immersive experience.”
"The two tracks of consumer electronics and automotive electronics are truly integrated, which can push our software and chip capabilities to a whole new level." Shen Ziyu said.
Up to now, from the underlying hardware, OS to the upper system and even the application ecology, Yikatong Technology has formed a complete vertical integration of technical resources and core competitiveness. This also means that Yikatong Technology has solved both hardware and software, and has a complete set of development components, and has completed the integration of human-computer interaction at the experience level, which will be the best path to intelligent cars.
Obviously, for car companies, a solution that can reduce the underlying adaptation and development costs, and has enough openness to meet individual needs is undoubtedly the most ideal solution. Yikatong Technology adopts a flexible and open cooperation model, which can be either a Tier2 model, providing modules, underlying software, middleware and other products, or a Tier1 model, providing a complete set of modular and platform-based full-stack solution.
The launch of ECARX computing platform + Flyme Auto solution products is expected to change the previous pattern of cars and mobile phones fighting independently, and provide a new reference model for the integration of consumer electronics and automobile industries.
From China to the world, creating a second growth curve
Yikatong Technology has embarked on a new "journey".
In recent years, with the rapid development of intelligent and electrified automobiles in China, major Chinese automobile brands have accelerated the implementation of their "overseas" strategy. At the same time, Chinese companies represented by Yikatong Technology are also empowering overseas OEMs through their advanced technologies and products.
As the first Chinese automotive intelligent start-up company to be listed on the U.S. stock market and the world's leading provider of in-vehicle computer systems, Yikatong Technology is committed to becoming the underlying base and hub of the global intelligent automotive industry. Up to now, Yikatong Technology has served 12 OEM brands around the world, cooperated with many global Tier1s, and accumulated more than 5.2 million mass production experience.
In fact, in order to achieve globalization, as early as 2020, Yikatong Technology established its European headquarters and product research and development center in Gothenburg, Sweden, taking a key step towards going global. In 2021, Ekatong Technology also established a joint venture with Volvo HeleyTech to jointly develop the ECARX CloudPeak cross-domain system capability base. In 2022, Yikatong Technology successively established overseas operation centers in London, England and other places.
Obviously, relying on the global ecological layout and complete software and hardware solutions, Yikatong Technology can not only help Chinese car companies go global, but also help global brands quickly land in the Chinese market.
Starting from China, and finally to global R&D and global delivery, Chinese companies led by Yikatong Technology are opening a new era of global automotive intelligence.