Recently, Mr. Shan Jizhang, CEO of Black Sesame Intelligence, said in an interview with Daily Economic News: "Intelligence has completely changed the demand for automotive chips." "First, chips require advanced technology, which was unimaginable in the car before; second, the scale of chips for intelligent driving is particularly large, which is completely different from the past." Shan Jizhang continued. In his opinion, the challenges brought by these changes in automotive chips are very great, because this is very different from the previous ideas of making automotive chips. Of course, this also brings an opportunity, that is, the market capacity is particularly large, the demand is increasing, and the penetration is getting higher and higher, which will undoubtedly bring better prospects to companies like Black Sesame Intelligence. As an industry-leading supplier of automotive-grade intelligent automotive computing chips and chip-based solutions, Black Sesame Intelligence has rich experience and accumulation in independent IPs such as ISP and NPU, which are particularly important for intelligent driving. Relying on these leading technologies, Black Sesame Intelligence has created the highly advantageous "Huashan" series of high-performance autonomous driving chips, and the company can also make cars see more clearly, see farther and understand more. However, with the change of terminal demand, Black Sesame Intelligence launched the smart car cross-domain computing chip - Wudang series C1200 in April this year. It is understood that the chip has recently completed the complete test after tape-out, and the functional performance verification has been successful, and samples can be provided to customers. For Black Sesame Intelligence, this is undoubtedly another important milestone in the company's development history. From "autonomous driving" to "cross-domain computing", Shan Jizhang has talked about one of the work directions of Black Sesame Intelligence in many interviews in the past - to provide customers with the best products through disruptive technological innovation. Among them, the grasp of terminal market demand is an important "pusher" that guides Black Sesame Intelligence to where it is today. As he said, in the face of changes in market demand, Black Sesame Intelligence timely launches chips and products that meet market requirements according to the needs and trends of technology and the market. For example, after seeing the shift in demand for autonomous driving and the development of intelligent driving towards scale and cost-effectiveness, Black Sesame Intelligence adjusted its corporate strategy and launched corresponding products. It is understood that the company's Huashan series A1000 chips for autonomous driving can already support the latest Transformer-based BEV algorithm well, and can fully meet the needs of L3 and below autonomous driving in the future. In the face of the gradual popularity of large models like ChatGPT and their penetration into the autonomous driving market in the future, the demand for computing power is still not clear enough, but Heizhima Intelligence will continue to explore the continuous improvement of computing power in the Huashan series chip product line. At the same time, Heizhima Intelligence also saw a new trend in the field of smart car technology. According to Heizhima Intelligence, from the perspective of the computing needs of a smart car, the types of computing power can be divided into these seven categories: general-purpose CPU, AI neural network processing, image rendering, dedicated CV computing, audio and sound processing, and efficient and safe real-time computing power. In different computing scenarios, these computing powers are used in different combinations with different specifications to meet different needs. In the era of in-vehicle computing chips entering the era of smart cars, it is necessary to be able to combine these different types of computing power to meet the needs of the evolution of increasingly centralized and simplified electronic and electrical architectures. The evolution of automotive electronic and electrical architectures promotes the further centralization of in-vehicle computing. To this end, in the design of future-oriented smart car chips, first of all, innovative architecture is needed to better integrate multiple functions originally from different domains in a practical, easy-to-use and easy-to-use way; secondly, in terms of computing power, these chips cannot blindly compete for the bigger the better, but should pursue the use of computing, and launch reasonable and effective computing power types and specifications for different market stages and different scenarios. Then think about how to fully and flexibly achieve the best balance of performance, power consumption and cost under feasible process technology; furthermore, as a car chip, we need to always maintain awe and let the most complex smart car brain chip meet the strict reliability and safety requirements of the automotive industry. This requires strict implementation throughout the software and hardware design and development process, and to ensure the stability and safety of the vehicle to the greatest extent from the process, product and production links; in addition, facing the increasingly complex software and hardware in the industry and the huge investment in platform development, how to realize chip platformization and effectively cover multi-scenario applications, hardware compatibility, software and algorithm reuse and continuous iteration through the same chip platform. It is also the focus of work for a smart car chip company.   In summary, Black Sesame Intelligence believes that a computing chip that can meet the needs of smart cars must first have an efficient, safe and reliable data base for carrying these different computing powers (Black Sesame Intelligence calls it Extreme Speed ​​Data Exchange Infrastructure (ESDE)). On the one hand, it can safely isolate the computing power combinations required by different FuSa levels; on the other hand, it can process and forward large-volume data with low latency to make full use of the computing power, making the computing power specifications more than just a decoration. Coupled with the independent functional safety island design and the Security module that meets the information security requirements at all stages from startup to operation, the overall infrastructure of the SoC is formed. Based on the above thinking, Black Sesame Intelligence launched the "cross-domain computing" product - Wudang, and brought the first product in the series, C1200. One "core" for multiple domains, one "core" for multiple uses According to Heizhima Intelligence, the architecture design of the "Wudang" series incorporates Heizhima Intelligence's experience in the field of in-vehicle computing over the years, and adopts an innovative fusion architecture. Through heterogeneous isolation technology, different computing powers are combined according to different scenarios, specifications and safety requirements, which can support the flexible development of automotive electronic and electrical architectures and support various architecture solutions such as dual-brain, cabin-driving, and central computing. It is this understanding that makes the Wudang series C1200, as the industry's first cross-domain computing chip platform for smart cars, able to achieve the cross-domain computing needs of smart cars with a single chip, providing smart car human-computer interaction, integrated driving, and data exchange capabilities; it can also perfectly cover the needs of multiple different domains within smart cars such as cockpits and smart driving, and has the ability to integrate multiple domains; it flexibly supports various architecture combinations in the industry now and in the future, and brings high-value and cost-effective chip solutions to customers. This is exactly the one "core" with multiple domains advocated by Heizhima Intelligence. The ability to achieve this goal is mainly due to the strength of the chip itself.   As shown in the above picture, Black Sesame Intelligence said that the Wudang series C1200 chip built using the 7nm advanced process has leading performance in many aspects. For example: using the automotive-grade high-performance CPU core A78AE (performance up to 150KDMIPS) that supports lock-step, and the automotive-grade high-performance GPU core G78AE, providing powerful general-purpose computing and general-purpose rendering computing power; self-developed DynamAI NN automotive-grade low-power neural network acceleration engine, supporting NOA scenarios; built-in mature high-performance Audio DSP module and a new generation of self-developed NeuralIQ ISP module that processes 1.5G pixels online per second; providing the industry's highest MCU computing power of 32KDIPMS; able to process more than 12 high-definition camera inputs at the same time, supporting high-speed MIPI; in terms of peripherals, C1200 supports processing the access and forwarding of multiple CAN data, supports Ethernet interface and supports all commonly used display interface formats, supports multi-screen output, and multi-channel 4K capabilities; supports dual-channel LPDDR5 memory particles, which can meet the bandwidth needs after cross-domain integration; pioneeringly realizes hard-isolated independent computing subsystems, independent rendering, and independent display to meet the high security and fast startup requirements of the instrument control screen. At the same time, the subsystem can also be flexibly applied to computing scenarios that require independent systems, such as autonomous driving and HUD head-up display; it has built-in Safety Island that supports ASIL-D level and Security modules of national secret level 2 and EVITA full, and meets the highest reliability requirements of automotive safety level. From the introduction of Heizhima Intelligence, we learned that in addition to many innovations, the "Wudang" series inherits and optimizes the core self-developed IP of the Huashan A1000 high-performance autonomous driving SoC chip that has been mass-produced: the third-generation ISP and the second-generation NPU, ensuring that in intelligent scenarios, it can share a set of AI tools and ISP tools with the Huashan series to protect customers' investments. Heizhima Intelligence said that the "Wudang" series chips are the most comprehensive and rich automotive computing SoC chips with integrated functional scenarios. With the help of the C1200 single chip, customers can simultaneously support NOA, smart cockpit, and data processing capabilities. Support the industry to reduce development difficulty and development costs through cross-domain integration, and extend intelligent scenarios to more popular models, helping partners and car companies achieve greater success. Thanks to these leading designs, Black Sesame Smart's "Wudang" series can be applied to multiple scenarios such as CMS (electronic rearview mirror) system, integrated driving and parking, smart headlights, vehicle computing, infotainment system, smart cockpit and in-cabin perception system. This is what they call a "chip" with multiple uses. As a family product, the C1200 series also launched the industry's first single-chip NOA SoC for NOA scenarios. It is understood that compared with the existing inefficient solutions in China that use at least 3 chips, the board level of the C1200 chip is the simplest. In addition to reducing the difficulty of NOA system development, it also greatly reduces the overall cost and supports partners to provide the industry's most integrated NOA domain controller. The Wudang series C1200, which has been returned, will become the foundation of automotive intelligence with the help of partners and the support of customers through insights into customer needs and a series of bold innovations, and will make its own contribution to the development of the industry. In conclusion, for a chip, defining or designing it is only the first step to success, because subsequent tape-out, yield, power consumption, heat generation, or even a little flaw may make the entire chip go to waste or start all over again. Especially for an automotive chip, the test it needs to go through is even more difficult. Moreover, for chips, how to use them well is also a big mountain in front of many chip companies. But for Heizhima Intelligence, everything seems to be going well so far. They can not only provide samples to customers. Based on the concept of convenience for customers, it emphasizes the platformization of customer development. Heizhima Intelligence also uses a set of SDKs to meet the needs of customers in various scenarios, saving development time and subsequent long-term maintenance costs. At the same time, Heizhima Intelligence will also make the development tools family-based, reuse the company's deep learning tool chain based on the Huashan series, and can achieve one-click migration of algorithms to ensure that the software assets of existing Huashan series customers are inherited. "In terms of technology development, the 'Wudang' series of cross-domain computing platforms is committed to becoming a landmark product that drives Chinese automakers to lead the world, providing Chinese local Tier 1 and OEMs with NOA intelligent driving solutions that are both cost-effective and high-value, and promoting the large-scale and extensive application of intelligent driving functions in China's main selling smart models." Black Sesame Intelligence emphasized.