Automotive Engineering - April 2023 - 13

TECHNOLOGY REPORT
SOFTWARE
Snapdragon Ride Flex puts safety, infotainment onto single chip
One chip, multiple benefits. That's the
claim made by U.S. semiconductor company
Qualcomm Technologies Inc. about
its new, scalable system-on-a-chip (SoC)
product family, called Snapdragon Ride
Flex. Unveiled at CES2023 and due to
enter the market in early 2024,
Snapdragon Flex is the auto industry's
first scalable family of SoCs that can run a
digital cockpit and ADAS features simultaneously,
according to the company.
Snapdragon Ride Flex is the latest
member of the Snapdragon SoC family.
Qualcomm's first-generation Ride
Platforms are currently available in commercialized
vehicles. Newer generations, which include the
Ride Vision stack that can handle ADAS applications, are being
tested by Tier 1s. They are expected to arrive on MY2025
vehicles from various OEMs, according to Qualcomm.
The Flex SoCs now in testing offer between 16 and 24 TOPS
(trillion, or Terra Operations Per Second) and are meant for
entry- and mid-level cockpits and SAE Levels 1 and 2 safety
features. Next-generation chips for higher-end cockpits and
automated driving between the so-called SAE L2+ and L4-5
- the latter featuring up to 2000 TOPS with two Flex SoCs
and two AI Accelerators - are in the design phase.
Enabling next-gen vehicle architectures
For now, the Ride Flex SoC will be pre-integrated with the
Snapdragon Ride Vision stack and can run both computer
vision and AI in a mixed-criticality environment, Qualcomm
said. The Flex SoC has a dedicated Automotive Safety
Integrity Level D (ASIL-D) safety island along with hardware
that supports isolation and freedom from interference. The
software side can have multiple operating systems running
Qualcomm's new RideFlex SoC enables multiple OSs to run concurrently, handling ADAS
functions, digital clusters, infotainment systems, driver monitoring and park-assist systems.
concurrently, including isolated virtual machines. Flex SoC's
selling point is the ability to handle ADAS functions, digital
clusters, infotainment systems, driver monitoring or park-assist
systems on its own.
The aim is to allow OEMs and Tier 1s to " realize a unified
central-compute and software-defined vehicle architecture, "
the company said. Putting so much power into one component
will allow automakers to develop future platforms in new
ways, with the silicon at the forefront, said Qualcomm senior
VP and general manager for automotive, Nakul Duggal.
Integrating Qualcomm's chips deeper into more and more
electric vehicles is a key strategy for the company. For example,
tighter integration between Qualcomm and its OEM
partners could allow an EV with the new Flex SoC to cool the
chip using the same thermal-management system that cools
the battery. The Snapdragon digital chassis will be the technological
backbone of the upcoming joint Sony-Honda Afeela
model, an EV that is expected to arrive sometime in 2025.
Another of Qualcomm's deep integrations is happening at
Volkswagen. In spring 2022, Qualcomm and VW announced
a global partnership to form Cariad, a new
company that would act as VW's software
and technology developer. The deal means
Qualcomm's chips will eventually be running
in millions of future VW EVs, and both sides
appear eager to tout the benefits of the new
system over VW's current ADAS chip supplier,
Mobilye.
VW isn't saying when its various brands will
The strategy behind Ride Flex is to allow OEMs and Tier 1s to realize a unified central-compute
and software-defined vehicle architecture as indicated in this Ride Flex diagram.
AUTOMOTIVE ENGINEERING
start introducing Snapdragon Drive SoCs in
its vehicles, but the unifying architecture is
targeting L3 and L4 capabilities. The first
Snapdragon Drive SoCs will arrive first in
VW's volume models. Due to timing issues,
VW will then " evolutionarily upgrade " its premium
models second before transitioning to a
unified architecture.
Sebastian Blanco
April 2023 13
BOTH IMAGES: QUALCOMM

Automotive Engineering - April 2023

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