NVIDIA Tegra Architecture
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Are they shipping lots of units?
The most high profile one in the past year seems to be the Nexus 9, which doesn't seem to be a huge seller.
Unless NV SOCs are in every Audi being sold these days, or there are some no-name Chinese devices that we're not that familiar with, where is this volume?
Last two quarters they're reporting incrementally higher revenues compared to the year-ago quarters:
http://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/n...al-results-for-fourth-quarter-and-fiscal-2015
http://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/nvidia-announces-financial-results-for-first-quarter-fiscal-2016
They tout the Automotive products under "Highlights" section of the press release for both quarters, not much specificity about mobile products, though they do talk up the desktop GPU products. For instance, these are the Highlights from the most recent quarter:
Maybe it's reading between the lines but if they had any hit mobile device products, they'd be touting them in these highlights.
The most high profile one in the past year seems to be the Nexus 9, which doesn't seem to be a huge seller.
Unless NV SOCs are in every Audi being sold these days, or there are some no-name Chinese devices that we're not that familiar with, where is this volume?
Last two quarters they're reporting incrementally higher revenues compared to the year-ago quarters:
http://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/n...al-results-for-fourth-quarter-and-fiscal-2015
http://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/nvidia-announces-financial-results-for-first-quarter-fiscal-2016
They tout the Automotive products under "Highlights" section of the press release for both quarters, not much specificity about mobile products, though they do talk up the desktop GPU products. For instance, these are the Highlights from the most recent quarter:
Maybe it's reading between the lines but if they had any hit mobile device products, they'd be touting them in these highlights.
Well, It is not because thoses brands are in the same group, that mean every brands will use the same hardware, supplier ( specially in the car market, where brands still got their own suppliers, their own engineers team and for many are just "acquisition " ) in addition, cheap actual models will not use any embedded advanced technology depending the range.
Then, again, it is not because they buy it today that brands will not move to a different supplier then. ( as for many supply on this markets, there's a lot of things who can enter in consideration: first will be the price / volumes, then how price and supply can be integrates in a same lineup, and cover every prices of a range of cars, not only one high end part ).
I know for a fact that Audi, VW, Skoda and Seat have shared quite a number of components between certain models in the past. This is from experience of driving in/travelling in different cars where many of the controls were pretty much the same! Not too surprising when the cars share chassis/engines and so forth.
As always with newer technology (ABS, for example), it tends to find itself in the higher end models first but then quickly works its way down the food chain, so to speak. No reason I can think of that this won't be the case for SOCs running the displays in cars. Even if NV aren't making much money there at the moment, if they've got their foot in the door at Audi, they could be set to expand their business enormously in this area.
As always with newer technology (ABS, for example), it tends to find itself in the higher end models first but then quickly works its way down the food chain, so to speak. No reason I can think of that this won't be the case for SOCs running the displays in cars. Even if NV aren't making much money there at the moment, if they've got their foot in the door at Audi, they could be set to expand their business enormously in this area.
Again their automotive design wins are low volume/high margin. Since you are quoting financial results you can have a look at Tegra related revenues and think how many units those could represent in the end. If NVIDIA would had been hunting after high volumes they should had turned their strategy eons ago into something Mediatek alike. I might personally still believe they should have, but if they get with just one automotive package sold as much as Mediatek with a few handful of SoCs then they're definitely not at a disadvantage in the automotive per se.
Overall yes they don't make much if any profit from Tegras, but then again I don't recall them making any profit from past IGPs either where it was more to have a market presence than anything else.
Just curious how long they could stay in the game. TI and others bailed, even though growth in mobile devices have been very strong.
But apparently they're shut out of phones. Or they can't produce product at prices to compete with the likes of Mediatek on the one end and Qualcomm on the higher end.
Phones have the sheer volumes so limiting themselves to tablets and cars is an interesting strategy. If car electronics became lucrative enough, you can be sure Qualcomm and others which they couldn't compete against in phones will enter the car market.
But apparently they're shut out of phones. Or they can't produce product at prices to compete with the likes of Mediatek on the one end and Qualcomm on the higher end.
Phones have the sheer volumes so limiting themselves to tablets and cars is an interesting strategy. If car electronics became lucrative enough, you can be sure Qualcomm and others which they couldn't compete against in phones will enter the car market.
Depends. In the automotive space it's rare for a silicon vendor to deal with the car vendor directly. There's usually a module supplier/ODM in the middle. So it all depends if they're also gearing up to be their own module supplier as well. That's a massive cost to take on, because the module supplier takes on the burden of certification and fit-for-purpose proofs, longevity testing, pre-physical integration, etc.
Support and software is therefore structured differently because of the middle man aspect. It's not going to be large amounts of revenue for NV to book if they're not the module supplier too, but being the module supplier isn't anything you can do in a short period of time.
Support and software is therefore structured differently because of the middle man aspect. It's not going to be large amounts of revenue for NV to book if they're not the module supplier too, but being the module supplier isn't anything you can do in a short period of time.
That a good point! In addition, at the 2015 Detroit Auto Show they also showed Tegra-Powered VW, Audi, BMW, & MINI's. They mention the newest addition is the Golf whose new infotainment system is Tegra powered. Audi has a new option available "Tegra-powered" tablet for passengers which is hard-wired into "Audi’s next-generation in-car infotainment systems. So passengers can use it as a remote for the car’s navigation, audio, phone and other functions." They also mention BMW 6 series is also powered by the Tegra as well as the Mini Countryman.
And Tesla has been using the Tegra since 2012..
http://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2015/01/15/motown-tegra/
Multiple Tegra modules in each car ...
http://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2015/03/11/audi-geneva/
After accepting the 2015 PACE Award for the Tegra Visual Computing Module, Nvidia mentioned they will be shipping their car computers to carmakers ...
"Our NVIDIA DRIVE car computers use the newest version of the VCM. They’ll start shipping to carmakers and developers next month. NVIDIA DRIVE computers are the world’s most advanced systems for self-driving cars and digital cockpits."
http://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2015/04/21/pace-award-tegra-vcm/
"In Nvidia’s (NVDA) Tegra business, the automotive segment is the fastest growing subsegment. Apart from being a fast growth segment, it offers higher gross margins as compared to the devices. In 4Q15, Nvidia’s automotive segment revenue almost doubled on a year-over-year basis."
"According to Nvidia, the company’s automotive platforms appear to be on a sharp upward trajectory. In 2015, over 7.5 million cars are using Nvidia’s technology, up from 4.7 million in 2014. For the past decade, Nvidia has been working on building its automotive computing platform, and therefore is in a strong position to leverage this growth. The company’s customers include prestigious automobile companies like Volkswagen, Honda (HMC), BMW (BMW), and Audi (AUDVF)."
http://marketrealist.com/2015/02/potential-key-drivers-nvidias-tegra/
NVidia seem to be a bit sneaky here. They have attached a Mobileye’s chip to many of there own car solutions and its really the Mobileye’s doing the driving not the Tegra chip for many versions. The Audi prototype that recently completed a 550 mile piloted drive from Silicon Valley to Las Vegas was Mobileye.
its a Tegra K1 SoC with a Mobileye’s EyeQ3 processor.
Audi, BMW, Fiat, Ford, General Motors, Honda, Nissan, Peugot, Citroen, Renault, Volvo and Tesla all seem to be going with Mobileye not leaving a lot of room for Tegra. Can NVidia compete against a company's dedicated to automotive solutions? Will Audi go with EyeQ4 or TegraX1? Perhaps a mix?
Audi, BMW, Fiat, Ford, General Motors, Honda, Nissan, Peugot, Citroen, Renault, Volvo and Tesla all seem to be going with Mobileye not leaving a lot of room for Tegra. Can NVidia compete against a company's dedicated to automotive solutions? Will Audi go with EyeQ4 or TegraX1? Perhaps a mix?
Do you have url's that supports your views?
Edit: While Nvidia is a newcomer to the automotive market, sales and trends from the url's above suggest automotive manufacturers are more than willing to try different sources for their automotive computer solutions.
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Are NVidia really a different source when they are using the same source as everyone else just trying to pass it off as their own? As far as I can see all those Tegra 3, 4 and K1 automotive solutions are not really NVidia technology nor NVidia software. It’s all Mobileye’s EyeQ3 hardware with Mobileye’s software run via MIPS CPU’s not Tegra. It looks to me like NVidia are just using marketing PR to pass off someone’s else automotive solutions as their own. Please correct me if I am wrong. How can they say Tegra automotive when the automotive stuff is not done on the Tegra chip or Tegra software?
Why is Tegra more likely to be adapted than Snapdragon by car makers?
Is it hardened for temperature and moisture extremes or something?
You also wonder how many people will bite on built-in tablet in cars if they already have phones and tablets. Why overpay for car electronics when in a year or two, you can get a much better device for $200-300.
And every year, the devices will be faster while the electronics you bought for the car is stuck.
Is it hardened for temperature and moisture extremes or something?
You also wonder how many people will bite on built-in tablet in cars if they already have phones and tablets. Why overpay for car electronics when in a year or two, you can get a much better device for $200-300.
And every year, the devices will be faster while the electronics you bought for the car is stuck.
Brodda Thep
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I would imagine it has a lot to do with nVidia's work in convolutional neural networks. I doubt snapdragon can get close, and the software certainly isn't there. If nVidia is giving a pretrained network that can detect objects accurately to car makers, then that is a competitive advantage for sure.
It is very likely that convolutional neural networks will be a driver of compute capabilities in the future, similar to how graphics were also a driver. How long until nVidia starts delivering chips built specifically to run neural networks? (It probably won't be anytime soon since the techniques used are changing so rapidly.)
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