Self-Driving Truck Company Agrees to New AI Chip Deal

Self-driving truck company Kodiak Robotics has confirmed a new deal that extends its relationship with semiconductor supplier Ambarella.

Kodiak says it will use the California firm’s CV3-AD685 AI domain control system-on-chip (SoC) as a complete embedded compute solution for its next generation of autonomous vehicles.

The announcement follows an initial deal announced a year ago to use Ambarella’s CV2AQ AI perception SoC in Kodiak’s trucks for camera data processing.

According to the companies, the new SoC will enable Kodiak’s multi-sensor perception, fusion and path planning—running neural networks while processing an array of cameras, Lidars and radars.

The 5nm SoC has been created to provide a high-performance solution in the smallest form possible and will enable Kodiak’s modular autonomous vehicle platform hardware across a wide variety of environmental conditions.

It’s claimed to offer a combination of efficient AI processing, advanced image signal processing and low power consumption.

Additionally, its improved CVflow AI engine includes a neural vector processor engine said to be 20 times faster than the previous generation of CV2 SoCs, along with a general vector processor that provides the performance required for full autonomous driving stacks.

Related:Kodiak Leads the Charge in Self-Driving Trucks

Kodiak says the new SoC will bring improvements in safety and performance. Don Burnette, founder and CEO, explained: “The CV3-AD685 enables the Kodiak Driver, Kodiak’s autonomous system, to turn sensor data into actionable insight with lower latency, lower power consumption, and higher reliability.”

Fermi Wang, president and CEO at Ambarella, added. “Our CV3-AD685 SoC provides the autonomous vehicle industry with the processing performance needed to set new benchmarks in AI-based autonomous safety, efficiency and innovation.”

Since the establishment of the firms’ partnership a year ago, Kodiak has logged more than 300,000 miles on Ambarella’s CV2 AI perception SoC while delivering over 875 loads, with the chip enabling premium image quality in extreme conditions including rain, fog and darkness.

To celebrate the new deal, a Kodiak truck will be on display at Ambarella’s invitation-only exhibition this week at CES – where it is also expected the self-driving company will make another major announcement.
CEO Burnette promised “some incredibly exciting news” for the Las Vegas show when he spoke to IoT World Today at the end of 2023.