Marco Angelo D'Souza
Chipmaker Nvidia on Sunday unveiled a new processor aimed at powering high-end graphics on car dashboards as well as sophisticated auto-pilot systems.
At an event in Las Vegas ahead of the Consumer Electronics Show, Nvidia Chief Executive Jen-Hsun Huang said the Tegra X1 chip would provide enough computing horsepower for automobiles with displays built into mirrors, dashboard, navigation systems and passenger seating.
At CES 2015 that has just started, Nvidia has just launched a revolutionary new in-car control, navigation and entertainment system that brings huge processing power to the roads of the future.
CES 2015 kicked off with a key note from the president and CEO of Nvidia--the company that manufacturers mobile and desktop graphics processors
They announced the launch of their new Tegra X1 graphics processing unit: a 64-bit mobile processor that is capable of 1 teraflops of computing power
They also launched an all-new platform for use in upcoming cars--the Drive DX platform. This system uses two Tegra X1 chips in tandem to deliver 2.3 teraflops of mobile supercomputing power, can process 12 real-time camera inputs, and runs on a neural network of image learning that enables it to recognize numerous real-world traffic scenarios and objects.
The system is so advanced that it can teach itself to recognize images, such as road signs, specific types of vehicles, blinking lights of an ambulance, and pedestrians (even if they are partly hidden)
The in-car dashboard and navigation maps are now capable of being rendered in the car's cockpit with far greater clarity and realism. It can simulate several types of textures for the instrument cluster: aluminium, copper, even wood for example.
After struggling to compete against larger chipmakers like Qualcomm in smartphones and tablets, Nvidia is now increasing its focus on using its Tegra mobile chips in cars and is already supplying companies including Audi, BMW and Tesla.
In the third quarter, revenue from Tegra chips for automobiles and mobile devices jumped 51 percent to $168 million but it remained small compared to Nvidia's total revenue of $1.225 billion (800.7 million pounds).
