One of the iconic moments of 2004 sci-fi film, I, Robot, is Will Smith’s character taking manual control of his driverless car to escape from murderous robots. Fourteen years on, the advent of new technologies such as 5G has brought us one step closer to producing driverless cars. To handle the increased computing power required by such cars, faster and stronger technological components must be developed.
A key component of a self-driving car is autonomous driving chips, which allow a vehicle to process its external environment and make informed decisions more effectively. “Vehicles with higher levels of automation tend to need more sensors, better chips, and better software, as a more automated vehicle must be able to drive safely in a wide range of situations and at a variety of speeds and types of traffic,” observes a report by David Coffin, Sarah Oliver, and John VerWey from the US International Trade Commission.
Multiple tech firms, from Tesla to Mobileye, an Israel-based unit of Intel Corp, have begun researching and developing such technologies. Even Japanese car maker Toyota is making a pioneering foray into the semiconductor industry, forming a joint venture with automotive components manufacturer Denso to produce autonomous driving chips.
Crouching tiger, hidden dragon
But a much younger Chinese firm, founded in 2016, is the latest challenger to lay claim to the title of “best chip”. Black Sesame Technologies, a start-up founded by former Omnivision vice-president of engineering Johnson Shan, unveiled its new Huashan-2 series chips in June. Shan says that these new chips — A1000 and A1000 Lite — are not only cheaper, but also more open and technologically advanced than the more established players.
“Compared to Mobileye, our chip is future-focused and future-enabled. Our major focus is on AI and Machine Learning [ML], unlike Mobileye,” says Shan, who holds the CEO role, in an interview with The Edge Singapore. The Huashan-2 chips, he says, deliver 40 TOPS (tera operations per second) of computing power, nearly 16 times Mobileye’s 2.5 TOPs for their EyeQ4 chip. Additionally, the Huashan-2 series is more efficient than its competitors — Nvidia’s Drive Xavier chip consumes 30W to generate 30 TOPS while the Huashan-2 series chips consume just 8W of power to produce 10 TOPS more computing power, he adds.
A single Huashan-2 series chip is able to support Level 3 autonomous driving, reports Chinese automotive news site Gasgoo. There are six levels of driving automation defined by the Society of Automotive Engineers, ranging from 0 (fully manual) to 5 (fully autonomous). Level 3 vehicles have “environmental detection” capabilities and can make informed decisions for themselves, though they still require human override. The more basic Levels 1, and 2, in contrast, offer driver assistance and partial automation respectively. The Huashan-2’s multi-chip interconnect FAD (filter analogue-to-digital) board is able to support Level 4, which allows the vehicle to intervene if something goes wrong or a system failure occurs.
Shan points out that the Huashan-2 has an additional advantage of being sold on the open market, making it available to a wider range of potential customers vis-a-vis other firms that produce chips for their own use. The lower silicon die area of his chips make them more cost-efficient as well: Huashan-2 chips, he says, contain less than 100 square millimetres of silicon vis-a-vis Tesla’s 260 square millimetres.
Black Sesame has met with some notable successes thus far. The firm has already begun working with a wide range of automobile firms, including leading Chinese auto firms FAW and SAIC Motor, as well as with German firms Volkswagen and Bosch. The firm hopes to launch an IPO in 2022; it will most likely be in China due to Black Sesame’s high valuation there, but a US listing has not been ruled out, says Shan.
Not that Black Sesame finds itself short of cash, however. The firm has amassed a considerable war-chest of US$100 million ($136.5 million) in Series B funding. According to Forbes magazine, this was one of the highest amounts of funding raised by a start-up globally in 2019. Legend Capital and China’s major automaker SAIC Motor were among the investors participating in the round.
Quest for perfection
For Shan, the goal has always been to bring about the possibility of mass-produced autonomous vehicles. As an engineer with Omnivision, he saw that the significant amount of computing power needed to run AI algorithms prevented the mass production of such vehicles.
With two decades of experience in an image processing firm and contacts in the automotive industry with firms like Bosch, Shan believes this is a problem he can solve. His conviction is so strong that he is willing to take on a significant psychological burden to bring his vision to life. “Start-up means you put everything — you put all in. You put all your energy and even health into this company. It is also stressful,” he says.
Being a start-up leader also means having to motivate employees to follow his vision. Contrary to the glamorous image of start-ups with beautiful offices and lavish perks, Shan says that his workers put up with lower pay and work hard in the constant pursuit of perfection.
The Tsinghua engineering graduate places a great emphasis on technical skills when recruiting his team. Most of his staff hold Master’s and PhD degrees. Most importantly, to compete against the world’s biggest companies, Black Sesame employees are expected to demonstrate creativity and a dedication to perfection.
As such, the firm is willing to recruit fresh graduates with a positive attitude and train them with the skills needed to succeed at Black Sesame. “We try to share all our experience with everybody in our company so that they can innovate and create,” says Shan, adding that he is committed to building a diverse team at the firm.
Expanding into Southeast Asia
Black Sesame is looking to develop a R&D centre in Singapore due to its well-educated and tech-savvy workforce. The centre has hired over 20 local engineers and is focused on research in AI/ML, video and image processing and developing drive algorithms for businesses.
Beyond the wealth of talent in its workforce, Singapore’s strong focus on Smart City and advanced mobility solutions makes the country an ideal place for Black Sesame to begin its expansion into the Southeast Asian market. As early as 2017, the Economic Development Board (EDB) had identified autonomous vehicles and AI as potential new growth opportunities for the electronics industry. Subsequently, it announced plans to diversify into these new growth markets, and to transform the existing base of electronics manufacturing and attract new investments in high-value components.
Moreover, Singapore’s strategic position at the heart of Southeast Asia promises to give Black Sesame unparalleled access to one of the world’s most dynamic growth regions. “In Southeast Asia, the total automotive sales is about 5 million cars per year. This is not a small [number],” Shan tells The Edge Singapore.
Already, says Black Sesame’s Singapore general manager, Jin Xu, the firm has begun working with Infocomm Media Development Authority, a government tech agency, to develop its smart traffic project. Black Sesame has also begun talks with EDB with a view to future collaboration.
Coherent Market Insights expects the Asean car aftermarket will account for US$53 billion in 2019 and will grow at a CAGR of 9.7% from 2019–2027. Shan also highlights that there remains a lot of room to outfit existing vehicles with improved safety devices. In particular, he sees Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia as the most promising regional markets in terms of sheer vehicle volume. These are the three biggest car markets in Southeast Asia.
But the ambitions of Black Sesame’s CEO extend far beyond the confines of Southeast Asia — he views Black Sesame as a global company and is looking to build a global customer base. He sees more than one million cars using Black Sesame’s chip within the next five years. “Right now, our chip is number one in China in terms of technology and in terms of product...I believe that five years in the future, we will be number one in this market,” he says.
