Mobileye abandons the black box

On July 5, Mobileye officially released the EyeQ Kit, the first software development kit (SDK) for EyeQ® SoCs.Using the EyeQ Kit, OEMs can deploy differentiated algorithms and human-machine interface tools on the EyeQ platform based on the energy-efficient architecture of the EyeQ® 6 High and EyeQ® Ultra processors.

That said, Mobileye has finally decided to abandon its much-maligned black box.

In the early days, Mobileye smashed the Quartet with low-cost visual perception solutions and won many car companies in the ADAS field.Including Ideal, Weilai, and BMW, they were all loyal users of Mobileye at that time.

In the early stage of autonomous driving development, Mobileye's black box packaging design is ready to use, which can greatly save the cost of car companies.But today, full-stack self-research has become a trend, and car companies have more and more diverse requirements for assisted driving. At this time, the black box has become a limitation.

As Li Xiang said: "The ideal car does not allow a 'black box' to appear in the car."

In just a few years, many car companies have broken up with Mobileye.

The pain in the Chinese market finally made Mobileye determined to abandon the past.

Lu Yili, General Manager of Mobileye China, said that EyeQ Kit will empower Chinese local OEMs to conduct independent research and development of cutting-edge algorithm applications, and at the same time, rely on Mobileye's industry-proven technical strength to ensure safe and reliable solutions.

"In the process of designing this new development tool, we fully understand the needs of our Chinese partners, hoping to bring more flexibility and differentiated functions to their products. Today, industry customers are faced with product selection narrow trend, and Mobileye is working hard to embrace a more open partnership model.”

EyeQ Kit was developed by hundreds of Mobileye engineers, drawing on the technical strength of Intel and Mobileye, enabling car companies to easily and efficiently develop their own application software, while supporting the embedded development of third-party applications, thereby reducing the cost of integrating other chips. increased cost.

Through EyeQ's hardware and software, automakers have access to comprehensive Mobileye solutions, including computer vision, Road Information Management (REM™) autonomous vehicle mapping technology, and Responsibility Sensitive Safety Model (RSS)-based driving policies.

In addition, the EyeQ Kit enables car companies to further tap the powerful functions of Mobileye's system integrated chips, which not only enhances the assisted driving function, but also helps car companies to achieve personalized customization for their own brands.

As the visual requirements for interaction and communication between the driver and the car become more complex, the EyeQ Kit provides car companies with new ways to customize the flow of critical information.

With more advanced augmented reality displays, the EyeQ Kit will help customers achieve features such as surround visualization, automatic lane keeping and traffic sign recognition.

From general-purpose CPU cores to highly compute-intensive accelerators, including deep learning neural networks, EyeQ has a scalable, modular architecture that provides the right energy efficiency to deploy AI technologies for automotive applications while achieving ultra-high performance.

Professor Amnon Shashua, President and CEO of Mobileye, said: "The EyeQ Kit is the best of both worlds solution, helping customers benefit from Mobileye's proven core technology while allowing them to benefit from their own expertise in the driving experience and interfaces. As more and more core functions of the car are gradually software-based, customers will need extreme flexibility and space to define the brand and achieve differentiation.”

In addition to reducing development costs and accelerating time-to-market, the EyeQ Kit provides hardware manufacturers with extreme flexibility throughout the development cycle.

Mobileye initially won the market with its economical and efficient solutions.When asked about the difference in computing power with chips such as Nvidia, Erez Dagan, executive vice president of product and strategy at Mobileye, said that it is not advisable to use only one number to measure a chip, and the balance between computing power and power consumption is more important. .

But watching a lot of new cars turn their heads to embrace Nvidia Orin, and even the Horizon Journey series, Mobileye probably has to admit that times have changed.

Not long ago, the rumors of the breakup of Ji Krypton and Mobileye also led to public speculation. Is Mobileye, which had been acquired by Intel at a premium, really outdated?

With the launch of EyeQ Kit this time, Mobileye abandoned the black box and stopped being a one-of-a-kind supplier, but began to embrace a more open cooperation model.

Professor Amnon Shashua comes across as a technocratic rationalist.But in the market, the needs of different car companies and users are diverse.To embrace the market, even suppliers standing on the top of the mountain need to be more open-minded.

Mobileye is starting to change.