Despite CES 2021 being forced to be held virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic, last week’s edition of the annual technology event was still a busy one for the folks at digital imaging technology supplier, OmniVision Technologies, Inc., which issued four announcements before and during CES last week intended to demonstrate the California-based company’s focus on automotive safety and flexibility for vehicle designers.
Faster driver monitoring using less power in a smaller footprint
OmniVision’s virtual CES 2021 exhibit included its new OAX8000, an artificial intelligence-enabled application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) for entry-level, stand-alone driver-monitoring systems (DMSs), which detect driver drowsiness and distraction. First announced by OmniVision the week prior to CES 2021, the ASIC uses a stacked-die architecture to provide what is said to be the industry’s only DMS processor with on-chip DDR3 SDRAM memory (1 GB). According to OmniVision, OAX8000 is also the only dedicated DMS processor to integrate a neural processing unit (NPU) and image signal processor (ISP), which provides dedicated processing speeds up to 1.1 trillion operations per second for eye-gaze and eye-tracking algorithms.
With these processing speeds, 1K MAC of convolutional neural network (CNN) acceleration and integrated SDRAM, OmniVision now claims the lowest power consumption available for DMS systems; the OAX8000 and OmniVision automotive image sensor consume just 1 W in typical conditions, combined. Because space is always at a premium for vehicle designers, this integration also reduces the required board area for the engine control unit (ECU). OmniVision also says the boot-up time for OAX8000 is faster than its competition and is cyber-secure.
All of this will be particularly relevant over the next two years, as all new vehicles sold within the European Union must be equipped by DMS camera systems by 2022.
“Most DMS processors on the market today are not dedicated to this application, requiring added circuitry to perform other system functions that consumes more power, occupies more board space and doesn’t allow room for on-chip SDRAM,” said Brian Pluckebaum, Automotive Product Marketing Manager at OmniVision. “By focusing the design of our OAX8000 ASIC on entry-level DMS, we were able to create the automotive industry’s most optimized solution.”
Enabled by a new partnership with Cipia
OmniVision also announced a new partnership with Cipia (formerly Eyesight Technologies), which developed the driver-monitoring software in the new OAX8000 DMS product. The combination of the two offerings is intended for mass-market use by OEMs at the entry-level. Cipia’s software not only enables detection of drowsiness and distraction for safety compliance, but also powers convenience features such as driver identity for in-cabin personalization.
The two companies had DMS regulations for existing vehicles in mind when developing their new DMS solution, making the OAX8000 compact, flexible, and relatively inexpensive for retrofit applications. In addition, the product includes convenience features such as driver identity for in-cabin personalization.
According to Cipia, the automotive industry is already energized by the arrival of OAX8000.
“Considering the small form factor of the OAX8000 and level of integration possible, it’s no surprise the initial responses from OEMs and Tier 1s for this collaborative solution are highly favorable,” said Cipia’s CEO David Tolub.
New image sensor for Level 4 autonomy and beyond
Another CES product announcement from OmniVision featured its new OX03F10 automotive image sensor. An addition to OmniVision’s ASIL-C viewing camera family, the new sensor includes higher 3-MP resolution and cybersecurity features, which are required as vehicle designers make the transition from Level 2 and 3 advanced driver assistance systems (ADASs) to higher levels of autonomy.
The new sensor is offered in a 1/2.44” optical format and features a 4-lane MIPI CSI-2 interface. It’s billed as the first viewing image sensor with HDR and LFM that can deliver a wide vertical array resolution of 1920 x 1536 pixel at the highest rate of 60 frames per second. This enables the high image quality needed when feeding surround view system (SVS) captures into autonomous, machine vision systems.
“In addition to excellent image quality across all lighting conditions, higher resolution and cybersecurity are becoming must haves for the designers of viewing cameras—particularly for SVS,” said Kavitha Ramane, Automotive Product Marketing Manager at OmniVision. “Our new OX03F10 maintains OmniVision’s unique combination of the industry’s top HDR and LFM capabilities over the entire automotive temperature range, along with ASIL-C functional safety and the best low light performance, while adding the 3MP resolution and cybersecurity features that are required as designers begin to integrate viewing cameras into autonomous vehicle systems.”
Joint solution with Nextchip for external cameras and e-mirrors
OmniVision’s CES message of flexible safety innovation continued with their announcement of a new partnership with Nextchip Co., Ltd. The two companies unveiled a pre-tuned solution to provide high-quality images for rearview cameras, surround-view systems (SVSs), and e-mirrors in low-end and midrange vehicles, and is designed to save automotive designers significant time and effort.
“Based on this excellent fit and market demand, Nextchip and OmniVision partnered to pre-tune all of the NVP2650 family’s optimized settings for processing captures from the OX03C10, saving automotive designers up to three months of tuning effort and fast-tracking their ability to create high quality viewing cameras for all lighting conditions, including operation in the presence of flickering LEDs from headlights, road signs, and traffic signals,” said Ramane.
The combined offering uses OmniVision’s OX03C10, which is said to be the world’s only automotive image sensor to combine a large 3.0-micron pixel, high dynamic range (HDR) of up to 140 dB for minimized motion artifacts, and the highest LED flicker mitigation (LFM) performance. Nextchip’s NVP2650D image signal processor (ISP), which integrates two NVP2650 ISP cores in a single package, can simultaneously process the captures from two OX03C10 sensors, providing dual and full LFM image outputs at 60 frames per second (fps) using a single ISP. Additionally, the NVP2650D provides a combined 10/12-bit compressed RAW output and 24-bit uncompressed HDR output to further enhance the image quality for scenes with widely contrasting light and dark areas.
“We partnered with OmniVision because of its industry-leading HDR and LFM technologies, along with the extremely low power consumption of its automotive image sensors that is well matched with Nextchip’s low-power, high-performance ISPs,” said Young Jun Yoo, CMO at Nextchip. “This joint solution combines these attributes of OmniVision’s OX03C10 with our NVP2650D ISP’s ability to process two image sensor captures simultaneously, enabling the SVS camera designers for low-end and mid-range vehicles to achieve excellent image quality without the added system bill-of-materials cost, complexity and power consumption of two ISPs.”
Joining forces with Seeing Machines
Just before CES 2021, Seeing Machines announced it will license its Occula neural processing unit to OmniVision in the first execution of a silicon license for the NPU, which enables the development of low-cost, high-performance edge-AI semiconductors to power human-machine interfaces.
The partners are working together to combine the Occula silicon IP with OmniVision’s innovative machine-vision silicon technology. Seeing Machines continues to grow as a leader in DMS technology, having won contracts with a total five automotive Tier 1 customers for a steadily growing number of programs across six global car OEMs.
“This agreement represents a natural next step for our two companies, to work strategically together to achieve the highest possible coupling between the imaging and processing domains,” said Paul McGlone, CEO, Seeing Machines.
“This agreement enables us to better leverage Seeing Machines’ Occula NPU, in combination with OmniVision’s extensive imaging technologies—including global shutters, Nyxel near-infrared technology, and CameraCubeChip wafer-level camera modules—to provide optimal performance for driver and occupant monitoring,” said Andy Hanvey, Director of Automotive Marketing, OmniVision.
Gary Mason contributed this article to Futurride. He’s a storyteller and communications professional with more than 10 years of experience in the automotive industry. During his career, Gary has represented such companies as Honda, ZF, Federal-Mogul, MTU, and General Motors, as well as several automotive steel producers. A content creator, Gary is always looking for great stories to tell. Contact Gary at gmasonPR@gmail.com.
