From 5G Chipsets to Hardware Verification Platforms: SoC Design Ramps Up
As companies shoot to deliver higher performance devices, the system-on-a-chip (SoC) hopes to deliver. From new chipsets to SoC verification platforms, the industry aims to keep pushing SoCs to new heights.
SoCs are fast becoming one of the main components of cutting-edge technologies.
With the advent of systems that employ AI and neural networks in their functions, companies are now leveraging SoC solutions to meet the growing needs of state-of-the-art technologies. SoCs can allow companies to provide users with robust and efficient products or devices while maximizing performance.
An example block diagram of an SoC. Image used courtesy of onsemi
Holding to this trend, a few companies have recently created new SoC solutions and ways to improve and simplify their design.
This article will look into those recent SoC's and how companies are approaching this technology.
Pony.ai Beefs-up Autonomous Computing Unit
Pony.ai, one company in the autonomous vehicle industry, has recently introduced its autonomous computing unit equipped with NVIDIA DRIVE Orin SoC.
Since the NVIDIA DRIVE Orin SoC claims to achieve up to 254 trillion operations per second (TOPS), this new development aims to deliver robust performance and accelerate the production of scalable autonomous systems.
What's more, the NVIDIA DRIVE Orin aims to set up a safe and secure user experience in intelligent vehicles.
The Pony.ai autonomous computing platform. Image used courtesy of Business Wire and Pony.ai
As remarked by James Peng, the co-founder and CEO of Pony.ai, the autonomous computing unit hopes to push the company to realize its vision of bringing safe autonomous mobility solutions while leveraging the world-class NVIDIA DRIVE Orin SoC.
With the collaboration with NVIDIA since 2017, Pony.ai has hit a milestone in its autonomous vehicle production by introducing the first Toyota Sienna Autono-MaaS (S-AM) vehicle.
It is said that the vehicle is equipped with solid-state LiDARs, millimeter-wave radars, and cameras for improved safety and reliability.
This use of NVIDIA's SoC solution helps show that teaming up to utilize each other's skills and assets can help open the door to newer technology advancement.
Dimensity 9000 Chip Advances 5G Smartphones
To meet the needs of the advanced functions in smartphones, MediaTek has released an SoC called Dimensity 9000.
The Dimensity 9000 chip. Image used courtesy of MediaTek
The chip is built on the TSMC's N4 process. Overall, this SoC claims to be useful in next-gen 5G smartphones by providing them with a powerful 18-bit high dynamic range (HDR) image signal processor (ISP).
It also features a 5G modem that accelerates sub-6 GHz performance, reaching up to 7 Gbps downlink via 3CC carrier aggregation.
Furthermore, the chip features the latest industry connectivity standards, including Wi-Fi 6E and the new global navigation satellite system (GNSS) with Beidou III-B1C.
Thanks to its integrated application processor unit (APU), the Dimensity 9000 chip is suitable for users' power-intensive usage in gaming, video, imaging, and other multimedia applications.
All in all, the chip is equipped with 1 Arm Cortex -X2 ultra core with a clock speed of 3.05 GHz, 3 Arm Cortex A710 performance cores with a clock speed of 2.85 GHz and 4 Arm Cortex A510 efficiency cores, and claims a bunch of "industry firsts."
Cadence Palladium Z2 Eases SoC Design Verification
Bringing SoCs to light often requires rigorous debugging and verifying their hardware and software performance.
One company hoping to ease this process, Cadence is introducing its new Palladium Z2 enterprise emulation platform.
The Cadence Palladium Z2 finds applications in:
- Vector-based acceleration
- In-circuit emulation
- In-circuit acceleration
- Hardware verification language-based testbench acceleration
Additionally, within the emulation platform, there are core engines that claim to provide 2X higher gate capacity and 1.5X faster runtime performance.
The Cadence Palladium Z2 emulator platform. Image used courtesy of Cadence
In an attempt to put the emulation platform to the test, Microchip employed the device to develop its next-gen ASIC products geared toward system-on-chip solutions for data centers.
All in all, from new SoC chipsets to new verifications platforms, companies keep pushing this technology to newer heights.
Interested in other SoC advancements? Read on in the articles down below.
Arm Puts Security Architecture to the Test With New SoC and Demonstrator Board
Atmosic Brings Wireless Energy Harvesting for IoT Devices Directly Onto the SoC
An “Industry First” 5G NR Small Cell SoC Spurs Open RAN Technology Forward
