TOKYO — Mobileye is aggressively shedding its reputation as a one-trick vision chip supplier. As the technology of automotive industries transitions from driving assist to robo-taxi development, Mobileye, an Intel company, is rolling out a comprehensive plan to grab a sizable share in the highly automated vehicle (HAV) market. Mobileye’s newly disclosed roadmap ranges from a silicon-only “open” EyeQ5 chip (which allows third-party codes to run) to a complete subsystem focused on perception, a turnkey robo-taxi hardware system and applications for ride-hailing businesses. Mobileye’s strategy to move up the value chain from chips to systems is reminiscent of Intel’s CPU strategy in its early days. Intel succeeded in the PC business not just by selling its own CPUs but by designing and marketing PC subsystems and eventually PC motherboards. Amnon Shashua In an exclusive interview with EE Times, Amnon Shashua, Mobileye’s CEO, explained, “Mobileye is unique in a sense that it is the only company” offering an “open” strategy, allowing “room for collaboration” with tier ones and OEMs. Shashua said that Mobileye competitors such as Nvidia and NXP provide silicon with which carmakers can write their software. Meanwhile, Waymo, Uber and GM Cruise are building closed systems that they don’t sell to anyone else. Mobileye’s difference, he concluded is that “we build our own car, end to end, while offering options for complete systems, subsystems, chip and software, and silicon alone.” Since last month, when Bloomberg reported that Mobileye is opening its driverless technology, EE Times began investigating what exactly Mobileye is “opening up,” and what it means to the industry. First, a little background. While Mobileye’s EyeQ series chips have a stellar reputation in the Advanced Driver-Assistance Systems (ADAS) market, the company’s strategy is not exactly popular. Mobileye’s proprietary vision solutions are based on tightly coupled EyeQ chips with Mobileye’s own perception software. Mobileye’s rivals describe the EyeQ chip series as a “black box.” Mobileye wannabes have told us that carmakers are scrambling to find a way out of Mobileye’s stronghold in perception algorithms. They want EyeQ alternatives onto which they can plug their own software and add their own “secret sauce.” As OEMs crave freedom from Mobileye’s proprietary approach, the question is how long Mobileye can afford to stay with its black-box business model. As the era of autonomous vehicles — Level 4 and Level 5 cars — approaches, what must Mobileye do, and what exactly is the company’s plan for the upcoming EyeQ5? This why EE Times wanted to talk to Shashua. (Source: Intel/Mobileye) ‘Closed’ and ‘open’ EyeQ5 chips

Shashua said during the interview, “We haven’t really changed our colors” since its first EyeQ5 announcement. EyeQ5 is Mobileye’s newest SoC fabricated by using TSMC’s 7nm process technology. It is expected out next month, according to Shashua. At a launch announcement in early 2016, Mobileye described the new SoC as “offering the vision central computer performing sensor fusion for fully autonomous driving (Level 5) vehicles.” Shashua confirmed in our recent interview that besides the “closed version of EyeQ5” with Mobileye’s proprietary silicon and software tightly integrated (and nobody can change it), Mobileye is now rolling out a “silicon-only version of EyeQ5,” for the first time. Shashua explained that this is akin to Intel’s Xeon chip for laptops, PCs and servers, on which “other people write software.” He said, “This is what Nvidia does today.” Mobileye’s silicon-only approach to EyeQ5 marks a stark contrast to an EyeQ business model in which it sells “silicon and software as a closed system.” Shashua said that in driving assist the closed EyeQ chip comes with “entire application detecting pedestrians, vehicles and whatever it needs to function in a closed system.” So how does “open EyeQ5” work for real customers?

Consider the example of BMW, a party to the three-way BMW-Intel-Mobileye partnership. This alliance, announced before Intel acquired Mobileye, has a stated goal to enable the launch of robo-taxis in 2021. To BMW, Shashua said, “We are supplying a combination of our open EyeQ5 chip and closed EyeQ5 chip. Closed EyeQ5 performs perception, with all the information coming from cameras and so forth.” Meanwhile, “The open EyeQ5 is for BMW to write code for fusion and driving policy,” he noted. “So, when we say, ‘open architecture,’ it means we can provide our chip programmable and open.” Moving up the value chain

Shashua stressed that Mobileye’s big message isn’t just about making available a silicon-only version of EyeQ5. Besides going one notch below the closed EyeQ5, more significant is that Mobileye is poised to offer several “value nodes” above the closed EyeQ5 — by going up the food chain. This, said Shashua, is linked to “our recently announced deal with Volkswagen” to roll out Israel’s first ride-hailing service next year using self-driving cars. Volkswagen and Intel/Mobileye are forming a joint venture with Israeli car importer Champion Motors. Volkswagen will provide electric vehicles and Mobileye its autonomous driving technology. Champion Motors, meanwhile, will be responsible for fleet logistics and infrastructure of the robo-taxi. Shashua painted the big picture of Intel/Mobileye’s autonomous vehicle roadmap, showing it not only offering perception chips, but a complete subsystem, full hardware, the company’s home-grown radars and lidars, and software technologies required for the “moving people business” in the Volkswagen deal. The Mobileye CEO laid out what he calls six different “value nodes” for autonomous driving as follows: Silicon-only solution Silicon + software solution Complete subsystem Complete hardware system Supply of its internally-developed radars and lidars Software technologies necessary for the “moving people” business Notable here is that Mobileye appears to mimic Intel’s tried and tested PC “subsystem” playbook. Intel strengthened its monopolistic role in the PC market not simply by selling CPUs but designing PC subsystems and eventually pushing PC motherboards. Similarly, Intel/Mobileye is poised to offer a complete subsystem (for autonomous vehicles). A subsystem is “a piece of hardware that receives input from a number of cameras around the car,” said Shashua, “say, 12 cameras and 360-degree around the car.” This subsystem “performs perception computing as a closed system,” he noted, “with its output being an environmental model around the car.” What does 'AV Kit' entail?

The next value node (No. 4) is a complete hardware system performing autonomous driving. “This would be not only the perception,” said Shashua. “This will be fusion with other sensors; this will be driving policy, and all the decision making around merging into a traffic; and this will be mapping — all the building, using and localizing into the map; and also functional safety and fail operational.” With its output in control of the vehicle, he concluded, it’s all the hardware needed to run a robo-taxi. The system, serving as a turnkey solution for those who wish to start their own robo-taxi business, is based on Intel/Mobileye-designed “AV Kit.” The block diagram of AV Kit — a foundation of turnkey robo-taxi system. B and D in the slide above refer to ASIL B and D. RB refers to Roadbook. (Source: Intel/Mobileye) The nodes No. 3 and No. 4 will be available to its partners mid next year, while the AV Kit (consisting of several PCBs) become available to public is slated for the first half of 2020. Value node No. 5, according to Shashua is for Intel/Mobileye to supply sensors such as radar and lidar. Obviously, Mobileye doesn’t have these yet, but they’re in the plan, with Intel’s photonics engineers reportedly busily working on micro-radars in the labs. The last value node (No. 6) is not just technology, said Shashua. “We are building applications around moving people around, just as Uber and Lyft are doing,” he said. To date, Mobileye has no actual nodes, except for closed “silicon and software.” It offers after-market products, but never a complete car subsystem, let alone autonomous driving. Shashua said Mobileye is eager to move up the value chain because of its commitment to “mobility as a service (Maas)” with Volkswagen. This extensive roadmap, to say the least, is very ambitious for a chip company. Shashua agreed but stressed: “More important is that we already have customers.” Define ‘Open Architecture’

So, what does “opening up the architecture” of EyeQ5 mean exactly? As Shashua put it, Mobileye is “making EyeQ5 available for third-party codes.” Until now, EyeQ chips run only Mobileye’s codes. Shashua acknowledged that opening the originally closed SoC takes “a huge amount of resources” that Mobileye did not have before. However, Intel’s acquisition of Mobileye mobilized an army of Intel engineers — 200 of them — dedicated to making EyeQ5 open. Seriously, though, which part of its SoC did Intel/Mobileye open? Shashua said, “All of it.”

EyeQ5 has a number of CPUs (MIPS-based) and accelerator families. Unlike other chip companies using one type of accelerator such as GPU or FPGA, “Mobileye has developed, over time, IPs on a variety of families of accelerators,” said Shashua. “Some of them are specialized for deep learning calculations, and some for multi-thread per pixel, which is necessary for all sorts of computer vision algorithms.” What's inside Mobileye's EyeQ5? (Source: Intel/Mobileye) He said, “So we have a variety of different families, and the chip has a number of copies of each family of those accelerators, together with CPUs. And all of it is open for third-party codes.” Room for collaboration

By going “open,” Intel/Mobileye believes it will allow “room for collaboration” with other partners. In the move from driving assist to robo-taxi, the volume of tasks [the industry needs to take care of] is enormous, said Shashua. Different partners —whether tier ones or car OEMs — can use the “open architecture” to add their own elements, such as sensor fusion or driving policy. In Shashua’s opinion, “to make this run smoothly, it’s better to do it under one type of chip architecture rather than different types of chip architectures.” Recommended

What NXP Lost and Regained Post-Qualcomm But wouldn’t some automakers want to mix and match different chips — like four or five chips — in their autonomous vehicles? Shashua doesn’t believe so. In Shashua’s opinion, “We are the only company who builds its own car, end to end, while offering options for subsystems, chip and software, and silicon alone.” Still, this so-called “collaborative” approach might take a lot of Mobileye handholding, as tier ones and OEMs write their own codes. To minimize this, Shashua said, ntel dedicated 200 engineers to write libraries and APIs for EyeQ5. In addition to BMW, Fiat Chrysler, and Aptiv, Delphi's new self-driving spinoff, Mobileye claims it has a number of unnamed partners already enrolled in the Intel/Mobileye program with an open EyeQ5 option. Analysts’ views on Mobileye’s ‘open’ strategy

Most industry observers agreed that Mobileye’s so-called “open” approach was inevitable because it’s what the industry wants. Mike Demler, senior analyst at the Linley Group called open EyeQ5 “a programmable architecture,” not exactly an “open architecture.” He observed that Intel/Mobileye “have to open up their platform for OEMs because of customers’ demand to (a) differentiate, and (b) install their own IP. Mobileye can provide an SDK without revealing details of the underlying architecture.” Many analysts suspect that the development of libraries and APIs was a major challenge. Jim McGregor, Tirias Research founder, told EE Times, “I bet this was no small feat.” He said, “Mobileye did not develop its platform to be compatible with other platforms or adopt any industry standards. This makes me worry about how truly ‘open’ it will be.” One automotive industry insider, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said, “It’s not difficult to open it up for APIs. However, it is a lot of work, because you need to be clear about what you are making open. You must also maintain these APIs.” He cautioned, “When you do hardware and software together [like Mobileye has always done with its EyeQ series chips], you can optimize and really squeeze out performance. In contrast, when you open it, you introduce more layers of software and you have to introduce abstractions to protect IP.” Hence, it isn’t as easy as it sounds. An obvious advantage of silicon-only EyeQ5 is that if it is truly an open platform, it will allow carmakers to spread their own secret sauce on the Mobileye platform. The overriding principle, however, is that OEMs won’t really have control over EyeQ5, he added. That brings us back to the original question many asked: how open is this “open EyeQ5?” The anonymous industry insider suggested that Mobileye might be “only giving an island, or one or two certain cores open, making them free to program.” In his opinion, “It isn’t really open.” However, Shashua has insisted that Mobileye is opening “all of it” — a number of accelerators and CPUs included in the SoC. Phil Magney, founder and principal advisor of VSI Labs, told us that this [level of] openness is “not completely new, although the SDK to support third party developers is.” He added, “This is not an open architecture as we know it from the PC industry. Intel calls it their hybrid ‘open’ option versus their full suite.” Other observers worry about Mobileye’s comprehensive approach to providing everything from chips to subsystems and complete systems. They warned, “In this approach, they are forcing customers to their architecture and the corresponding hardware parts.” They suspect that despite Mobileye’s generous facade, the company might not end up all that free and open. It might be reluctant to give away secrets or details about the accuracy of its algorithms. In the end, the success of Mobileye’s “open” EyeQ5 depends on how good its SDK will be. Magney said, “At this time Intel went all in on developing a tool chain to support the new EyeQ5, which will become the cornerstone of Intel’s automated vehicle architecture.” — Junko Yoshida, Global Co-Editor-In-Chief, AspenCore Media, Chief International Correspondent, EE Times