Ambarella offers new chip for computer vision, looks to automotive sector for growth
Ambarella has developed a CV72S system-on-chip (SoC), which allows security cameras to leverage advanced edge AI capabilities such as radar for increased accuracy in object detection at nighttime.
The company’s chips are manufactured using 5nm process technology. Including on-camera intelligence via CVflow 3.0 architecture, the Ambarella CV72S vision processor can operate with a power consumption of less than 3W, claiming to be one of the highest AI performances per watt currently available.
Ambarella says its chipset equips customers with AI capabilities for advanced object detection and license plate recognition for various video analytics applications. Moreover, the hardware platform is expected to integrate into high-end cameras due to its radar sensor fusion, color night vision and heightened HDR capabilities.
“Ambarella’s CV72S fits perfectly into the ongoing trend for security cameras to integrate more and more AI capabilities at the edge via camera processors while maintaining a low power and thermal budget,” says Florian Domengie, the senior technology and market analyst for Imaging at Yole Intelligence, part of Yole Group.
The Ambarella CV72s has a dual-core Arm Cortex A76 processor core and built-in hardware security. To establish a Trusted Execution Environment, the SoC uses Arm TrustZone technology designed specifically for Cortex-A processor cores.
The Ambarella CV72S also includes the company’s proprietary Oculii virtual aperture imaging AI radar technology. The company says it delivers radar resolution 10-100x better than any other radar solution. This technology makes it possible to calculate objects’ distance, speed and direction over long distances, which is helpful for security applications, such as nighttime monitoring.
“We are accelerating the innovation by offering our latest CVflow 3.0 architecture and 5 nm process technology in the new CV72S SoC, which was purpose-built for the mainstream security market using our algorithm-first approach and in-depth knowledge of vision processing, radar and AI,” says Fermi Wang, the president and CEO of Ambarella.
Earnings highlights for fiscal 2023
New products will be an important part of Ambarella’s sales efforts in fiscal 2024.
Ambarella reported quarterly revenues of $83.3 million, a decrease of 7.7% compared to the same period last year. Despite a challenging second half of the year, annual revenues for the fiscal year ending January 31, 2023, revenue was $337.6 million, up 1.7% from the same period a year ago. This growth was driven by strong demand for the company’s AI vision SoC products, especially in the automotive sector.
Earlier this year, Ambarella partnered with Applied Intuition to develop an autonomous vehicle technology. This solution incorporates Ambarella’s edge AI and human vision advancements with the advanced simulation software from Applied Intuition. The company also highlighted partnerships with Bosch and Continental.
While IoT revenue represented over 75% of Q4 revenue, automotive sector sales have already grown to 10% of the overall business, and offer higher per unit sales prices.
Article Topics
Ambarella | Bosch | chip | computer vision | Continental | edge AI | Radar | sensor fusion | SoC
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