The most powerful domestic automotive chip is coming. Horizon's next-generation product, the Journey 6 series, has a flagship single-chip computing power of 560TOPS, which exceeds the computing power of two NVIDIA OrinX chips. It is designed to adapt to the algorithm base Transformer for intelligent driving.

It will be officially released in April next year. At present, there are already ideal car companies that are interested in cooperating with Volkswagen, GAC, and BYD.

At the same time, we welcomed a new partner in Tier1: Bosch.

The computing power breaks through the ceiling of domestic automotive chips, and Journey 6 opens a "new journey" that goes far beyond the horizon.

Journey 6 Series: Information currently available to the public

Greater computing power is a common issue in chip upgrading. The most special thing about Journey 6 is that Journey 6 is no longer a single-chip battle, but a series.

Intelligent driving is gradually becoming standard equipment, but not everyone needs urban NOA. Some car owners may not even need high-speed NOA. They only need the most basic L2 assisted driving. The Journey 60% series has been released to meet the computing power needs of different levels of intelligent driving.

Among them, the flagship series has a computing power of up to 560TOPS, which is more than four times higher than the 128TOPS of the previous generation Journey 5. It can be said to be the strongest domestic automotive chip in terms of computing power.

What can be done with this kind of computing power released?

New forces are now involved in the urban NOA opening war. Most manufacturers choose to install two NVIDIA OrinX to provide computing power support for urban navigation, with a computing power of 504TOPS.

△Source: Li Auto official website

Therefore, judging from the parameters, a single Journey 6 flagship can meet the computing power needs of urban NOA.

In terms of access capabilities, Journey 6 has also been improved, supporting 4D millimeter wave radar and lidar, etc., and supporting up to 24 high-definition cameras.

At the same time, Journey 6 has upgraded its underlying architecture, accelerated some key operators in the form of transcendental functions for Transformer, and optimized the design from the lowest level of hardware to better support the "BEV+Transformer" paradigm that currently dominates intelligent driving algorithms.

The BPU (BrainProcessUnit) architecture upgrade is also the core reason for Journey 6’s breakthrough.

The so-called BPU refers to Horizon’s self-developed computing architecture dedicated to intelligent driving. Horizon has previously experienced two generations of architecture.

Journey 6's "Nash architecture" adopts a highly integrated solution that combines CPU, BPU, GPU and MCU (microcontroller) into one, improving the system's cost performance and reducing the difficulty of deployment.

The relevant person in charge of Horizon said that on the one hand, this caters to the trend of centralization of external electronic and electrical architecture.

From a business perspective, higher integration will lead to better performance.

The 560TOPS mentioned earlier measures the computing power of the chip. Intelligent driving chips are not just about "TOPS", the capability of the CPU is also critical.

Horizon believes that high-end intelligent driving not only needs to be data-driven, but also needs to be rule-driven to optimize complex urban scenarios.

Therefore, Journey 6 also enhances the computing power of the CPU, exceeding 350KDMIPS. Horizon compared current mass-produced products and said this is the strongest CPU computing power.

To briefly distinguish between the two units of DMIPS and TOPS, the software code runs machine instructions at the lowest level. DMIPS represents the machine instruction execution capability, and TOPS represents the logarithmic processing capability.

In fact, it is not just the computing unit that limits chip performance. Data supply capabilities can also cause performance bottlenecks.

It's like a cart of bricks was delivered to the construction site on the first day, and the foreman hired five strong men to finish it all morning.

The next day the foreman hired 10 strong men, but a cart of bricks was delivered, and the 10 men finished the work in less than a morning. It seems that the work is faster, but in terms of unit time (one day), the work done is not much.

The extra strong labor on the construction site is meaningless.

Therefore, chip upgrades not only need to calculate faster, but also ensure data supply.

Horizon improves the data supply capabilities of Journey 6 through two aspects:

Brand new storage system and self-developed bus.

Journey 6 uses a three-level storage system. At the same time, Horizon also developed its own bus, which is the component responsible for communication in the hardware, making data transport faster.

In addition to the product itself, Horizon also provides software support to partners, such as software stacks, development tools, documentation and application examples, to help partners accelerate mass production.

At present, the new product has attracted interest from BYD, Ideal, Volkswagen, GAC and other car companies for cooperation. At the communication meeting, the well-known Tier 1 Bosch was also officially announced as a new partner.

Exactly what time can I get on the bus?

Horizon said that the Journey 6 series will be officially released in April next year, and delivery will be in the fourth quarter of next year.

In general, Horizon Journey 2 solves the problem of whether or not, Journey 3 solves the question of whether it is good or not, Journey 5 can replace imported products in some scenarios, and Journey 6 realizes the support of domestic chips for intelligent driving in all scenarios.

High-end NOA is a better choice

Does the smart driving chip have to be NVIDIA?

If we want to achieve urban NOA, does NVIDIA have to do it?

Horizon’s previous generation product, the Journey 5, has a single computing power of 128TOPS. Car companies such as the Lideal L9 choose the Pro model to use the Journey 5 to achieve high-speed NOA, while the Max model that supports higher-end intelligent driving chooses to be equipped with NVIDIA OrinX.

If you want to realize high-end intelligent driving, NVIDIA cannot be avoided.

Now the single computing power of Journey 6 has reached 560TOPS, and the computing power of a single chip is comparable to that of two NVIDIA OrinX. Although the relevant person in charge of Horizon responded:

Horizon pursues user experience, not just performance and price.

But now major car companies are launching a "Kaicheng War" for urban NOA. Such computing power performance will undoubtedly give manufacturers who want to realize high-end smart driving a new choice besides NVIDIA.

A fallen leaf tells us about the fall of the world, and perhaps we can also see the changes in the market behind it from this small chip:

Intelligent driving is becoming standard equipment, and the price of models has dropped to less than 100,000 yuan. Models without it mean falling behind.

This objectively makes smart driving popular, just as smart phones quickly swept the market and created tiered demand.

△Wang Chuanfu and Yu Kai, founder and chief scientist of Horizon

Some people are not satisfied with basic L2 intelligent driving, and high-speed NOA cannot satisfy their appetite. Urban navigation assistance has begun to penetrate into people's daily lives.

But there is still a lot of room for price drops, and manufacturers need to compete with each other to promote technological progress and bring prices down.

It is not spring when a single flower blooms alone, but when hundreds of flowers bloom, the garden is full of spring. In the cold winter of autonomous driving, the spring of intelligent driving, and the spring of ordinary people getting a better travel experience, is coming...