Horizon Robotics unveiled Journey 6
In my previous post, I talked about the importance of Horizon and Journey series chips success for China’s EV industry. This came after the unveiling of Journey 6 ADAS chip which combined NPU, CPU, GPU & MCU all in one.
At the time of its original tease, Horizon mentioned 1 variant with 560 TOPS and 350k+ DMIPS that would have initial customers like BYD, Li Auto and VW/Cariad
The specs looked very impressive. However, some of its customers like BYD and Li Auto have since also signed up to Nvidia Thor. Likely mean Thor will be used for L4 or L5 ADAS, while Journey 6 will be used for L2++ and L3 ADAS.
The question is what about the lower end models that don’t need 500 TOPS and L3 ADAS? We found out more this week as Horizon unveil its entire J6 family with 6 variants (4 of which have specs already)
This article explained in detail of Horizon’s tech unveiling event on Wednesday.
J6B has just 10+ TOPS and 20K+ DMKIPS CPU, which is an ideal replacement for L2 vehicles these days that use J3 or TD4 AI chips. It has already signed on Tier 1 customers like Bosch and Denso. BYD likely design its own ADAS chip for this entry level version, so would not be interested here
J6E has 80 TOPS and 100K DMIPS CPU. J6M has 128 TOPS and 137K DMIPS CPU. Both would be ideal for different types of L2+ solutions that incorporate high quality Vision and provide Highway NOA solutions. J6M may even be able to do City NOA.
It already signed up 10 automakers in this initial phase including BYD and Li Auto. It also signed up to 12 Tier 1 customers.
That’s a really impressive batch of initial customers both domestically and foreign.
It also continued to promote J6P chip, which is fully capable of all scenario NOA
Now expected to perform 410K DMIPS as well as 560 TOPS. BYD’s Wang Chuanfu even came to Horizon’s J6 unveiling. BYD will be the initial customer. We will find out the model that will be using J6P this year. BYD already uses J2 for Song Pro DM-i, J3 for Song L and J5 for Han ADAS version.
Horizon is also looking to become Tier 1 ADAS provider. It already reached partnership with Robosense and Hesai in 2021 to integrate Lidar with its chips. It has now paired up with Sony to incorporate 17MP cameras
Horizon is providing software solution to its customers in the form of “SuperDrive” platform to help with their algo development.
There are still things to be unveiled. J6H expects to be between 128 and 560 TOPS. 200-300 TOPS is sufficient for L2+ ADAS and City NOA. Many customers will want that. J6L slots in between J6B and J6E. A 30 TOPS solution will be perfect for providing low L2+ ADAS solution. Have 1 product for every scenario. That’s recipe for great success.
Maybe Horizon will be able to move onto something non-auto related with its next AI inference chip.