Revolutionising Smart Vehicle Experiences: Imagination & SemiDrive

The automotive industry is undergoing a significant transformation, and the creation of intelligent cockpits is crucial for shaping the future of smart vehicles. Imagination has partnered with SemiDrive, a leading automotive chip enterprise that has shipped over 3 million chips, to boost innovation in intelligent cockpit experiences.

Imagination’s pillars for intelligent cockpits

To drive the development of intelligent cockpits, we believe that it takes more than just technology. A deep market understanding and strong business partnerships with automotive leaders help push the boundaries of what’s possible. At Imagination, we believe that intelligent cockpit development requires four key pillars of success:

• High-Performance GPUs: We specialise in creating high-performance, energy-efficient GPUs designed for handling intricate graphics across multiple screens. These GPUs support various applications, ranging from high-performance cluster displays and in-vehicle infotainment to gaming.
• Functional Safety: Safety is a top priority for us. We provide cutting-edge ASIL-B GPUs and comprehensive documentation, ensuring OEMs achieve the highest levels of safety and robustness in accordance with ISO 26262 guidelines. Starting in 2023, our development and support processes for functional safety products have received independent certification up to ASIL-D.  
• Virtualisation Support: Intelligent cockpits frequently demand multiple operating systems, highlighting the need for robust hardware virtualisation support. This ensures safety, security, and optimal GPU performance, all while allowing for interference-free operation.
• Heterogeneous Compute: Imagination's GPUs offer high-performance parallel compute capabilities with ASIL-B metrics, without incurring a performance penalty or requiring dedicated software libraries. Our flexible architecture integrates graphics and general-purpose compute tasks into a single hardware IP, achieving both lower power consumption and higher performance. This versatility spans applications from the cockpit to Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) and autonomy.

Imagination and SemiDrive's X9 eCockpit Processor

In the above video, Matt Sun, Chief Technology Officer at SemiDrive, sheds light on the company's high-performance and exceptionally reliable automotive processors. The X9 series, designed for e-cockpits, incorporates our Imagination's PowerVR GPU to deliver a groundbreaking experience: it can support up to 10 full HD displays on a single chip, covering cluster, navigation, co-pilot display, rear-seat entertainment display, and more. 

Apart from elevating the user experience, the X9 processor also prioritises safety.

SemiDrive is among the few semiconductor companies in China that have successfully obtained the ISO 26262 functional safety management system certification. The X9 processor, in particular, adheres to functional safety standards and holds certification up to ASIL-B. This certification enables the seamless integration of safety-critical Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) applications into the eCockpit system.

Why use Imagination PowerVR GPU in your smart vehicle solution?

While Imagination takes pride in boasting our GPU IP capabilities, SemiDrive cited several reasons as to why they opted for Imagination's PowerVR GPU for its X9 processor:

Details of Imagination's Image Compression Technology

The Smart Vehicle Revolution

The automotive industry is experiencing a significant shift in computing architecture. To align with the move toward centralised computing, close collaboration is essential among semiconductor companies, IP vendors, Tier 1s, car OEMs, and ecosystem partners.

To learn more about Imagination Technologies and our smart vehicle efforts, contact us today and see how we can give your company that competitive edge.