Why is the Axera M76H chip a good choice for mid-to-high-end intelligent driving chips in the era of "universal intelligent driving"?

Release time:2025-02-24

Recently, a wave of high-level intelligent driving functions being installed in vehicles has swept across China's automotive industry. Even high-level intelligent driving features have been introduced to models priced around 100,000 RMB, aiming to make intelligent driving accessible to ordinary people, realize "Intelligent Driving Equality", and significantly increase the adoption rate of high-level intelligent driving functions. It is evident that the era of "Universal Intelligent Driving" is approaching.

Entering 2025, the strong emphasis and efforts by major automotive groups to promote the popularization of intelligent driving are undoubtedly a huge boon to the entire intelligent driving supply chain.

As the "brain" of intelligent driving systems, intelligent driving chips are crucial components for realizing "Intelligent Driving Equality" and "Universal Intelligent Driving". Axera, having anticipated industry trends in advance, has launched the intelligent driving chip M76H, which supports the large-scale mass production of mid-to-high level intelligent driving systems.

This chip:

Technically, it has proactively laid out for the evolution of algorithm architectures, natively supporting the BEV+Transformer framework, which perfectly adapts to the deployment of current intelligent driving algorithms;
It excels in power consumption control, with a Thermal Design Power (TDP) of less than 10W at a junction temperature of 125°C. The park and drive integration domain controller built on the M76H chip can easily achieve passive cooling, making it compatible with both new energy vehicles and fuel-powered vehicles;
In terms of cost, thanks to the chip's innovative design, the domain controller developed based on it is more cost-effective than competitors at home and abroad.

From these perspectives, the M76H chip is an excellent choice for intelligent driving chips amid the wave of "Universal Intelligent Driving".

Why is Axera's M76H Chip a Great Choice?

As an innovative chip enterprise, the core product of Axera's automotive business is intelligent driving main control chips. The core goal of the company's automotive business is to promote the large-scale installation of intelligent driving functions at all levels, and to achieve "Intelligent for Both EV and ICE Vehicles" — whether for electric vehicles or fuel-powered vehicles. "Intelligent Driving Equality" is actually consistent with Axera's core value of "Inclusive AI, for a Better Life".

The company's flagship ADAS chip M55H has been mass-produced and installed in multiple vehicle models; for the mid-to-high level intelligent driving market, the company has launched the M76H chip. This chip is mainly used in the form of park and drive integration domain controllers, and natively supports the BEV+Transformer architecture. It can help automakers implement functions such as Navigation on Autopilot (NOA) and Automatic Parking Assist (APA), and can even achieve Memory Pilot (ICA) in urban areas.

When promoting "Universal Intelligent Driving", automakers' main considerations for selecting intelligent driving chips are: technological advancement, excellent power consumption control, and outstanding cost performance.

Next, we will elaborate on why the M76H chip is a great choice for mid-to-high level intelligent driving chips from these aspects.

1. First, let's look at "Technological Advancement"

In terms of computing power, the M76H's NPU delivers 60TOPS of computing power, integrated with 8 high-performance CPU cores, providing sufficient computing capacity to meet the perception processing and computing needs of high-level intelligent driving systems.

Most importantly, the M76H chip integrates Axera's self-developed core IPs: ISP and NPU.

Axera's self-developed ISP has a processing capacity of 4x8MP@30fps, with excellent perception processing capabilities. It can enhance scenes in low-light environments, HDR wide dynamic range, foggy conditions, etc., enabling more accurate and clear vision.

The M76H chip integrates Axera's self-developed NPU V3 architecture, featuring a heterogeneous multi-core design. It supports low-bit-width mixed precision computing: the high-efficiency tensor core is optimized for CNN, accelerating Transformer and BEV applications; the flexible vector core is tailored for Transformer optimization with flexible programmability. Complemented by SDMA and heterogeneous multi-core hardware collaboration, as well as a rich set of CV operators for pre and post-processing, it comprehensively improves perception performance.

The M76H chip also boasts powerful video input and processing capabilities, high-efficiency memory bandwidth, and strong AI computing power, enabling simultaneous processing of multiple high-resolution video streams. It is also equipped with a dual-core VQ7 DSP, featuring instruction sets optimized for image processing and matrix operations, which can be used for radar signal processing, online positioning and mapping, and other application accelerations, supporting the implementation of complete full-time park and drive integration system solutions.

2. Second, let's look at "Excellent Power Consumption Control"

In terms of the critical "power consumption" indicator for automotive-grade chip applications, the M76H chip has a TDP of less than 10W at a junction temperature of 125°C. The park and drive integration domain controller built on the M76H chip can easily achieve passive cooling, offering more optimized costs while meeting the installation needs of both traditional fuel-powered vehicles and new energy vehicles.

Unlike some competitors of the M76H chip on the market that use active cooling, the M76H's passive cooling is unique. Of course, this is attributed to Axera's rich chip design and mass production capabilities.

3. Finally, let's comprehensively look at "High Cost Performance"

The main application form of the M76H chip is intelligent driving domain controllers, which, when combined with the sensor suite installed in the vehicle, can realize functions such as highway NOA and automatic parking.

Currently, for the most mainstream solutions, the 6V/7V single-SoC full-time park and drive integration system built on the M76H chip natively supports the BEV+Transformer architecture, balancing high performance and low cost.

This solution:

4D BEV Surround Reuse: The M76H chip's advanced NPU supports full-link BEV operation with higher efficiency; surround reuse solves the blind spots of millimeter-wave radar; builds a time-series fused 4D space to resist pitch and jitter, achieving more accurate trajectory prediction;
Full-Time Park and Drive: Enables seamless switching between driving and parking, enhancing the functional experience for end customers;

Passive Cooling: Achieves a chip power consumption of less than 10W with 60TOPS of computing power.

Such a complete solution has a more competitive cost advantage compared to the current mainstream highway NOA domain controller solutions from domestic and foreign competitors. This cost advantage is particularly important for "Universal Intelligent Driving and Intelligent Driving Equality", especially for automakers with less vertically integrated supply chains. This solution is one of the best choices for "Intelligent Driving Equality".

Of course, there is more than one intelligent driving system solution based on the M76H chip, including:

11V Dual-SoC Full-Scenario Intelligent Driving System, supporting multi-sensor fusion to achieve point-to-point full-scenario intelligent driving;
And more flexible combination solutions, configurable on demand.

4. "Intelligent for Both EV and ICE Vehicles" is the True "Universal Intelligent Driving"

In the process of promoting "Universal Intelligent Driving", fuel-powered vehicles should not be left behind!

When equipping high-level intelligent driving, fuel-powered vehicles have always faced two major industry challenges: first, the problem of stable power supply; second, overall cost considerations. For intelligent driving chips themselves, they are also required to have low power consumption and high cost performance.

As mentioned earlier, the high-level intelligent driving solution based on the M76H chip adopts unique passive cooling in terms of power consumption and has excellent cost control. For "cost-sensitive" fuel-powered vehicles, selecting the M76H chip as the main control chip can solve most problems and play a significant role in promoting "Intelligent for Both EV and ICE Vehicles".

Is it enough for an intelligent driving main control chip to have high performance, low power consumption, and extreme cost performance? Obviously not! Automotive-grade safety is a red line that every automotive component supplier must adhere to — safety is the foundation of everything.

Axera's M76H chip has obtained the ASIL-B functional safety product certification issued by an internationally authoritative certification body in early 2024. In addition, Axera's team has also obtained the ASIL-D functional safety process certification. Whether at the product level or process management level, Axera develops intelligent driving chips in full compliance with the stringent requirements of automotive-grade standards.

Overall, automakers and partner customers can safely choose the M76H chip as the appropriate "brain" for their high-level intelligent driving systems. With innovative technology, excellent power consumption control, outstanding cost performance, and easy-to-use toolchains, the M76H chip can help customers achieve rapid deployment and vehicle installation, thereby truly realizing "Intelligent Driving Equality".

"Dual Punch: ADAS Chips + High-Level Intelligent Driving Chips"

Currently, L2 ADAS, which has been widely mass-produced and installed in vehicles, has relatively standardized functions. Driven by regulations, standardization is an inevitable trend. Axera's current M55H chip and subsequent new ADAS chips can fully meet the needs of this market. Moreover, the company is actively expanding overseas, going global to create more market opportunities and bringing domestic automotive-grade chips to the international competitive stage.

In the current high-level intelligent driving market, technology is constantly iterating and the scale is expanding. As more and more large domestic automakers show stronger willingness to commercialize related functions, promote function popularization, and make more consumers use and accept them, the future market will become increasingly vast. Axera's M76H chip and subsequent more powerful chip products will better adapt to this market and provide a more cost-effective new choice for it.

Consolidating the basic ADAS market, leveraging the high-level intelligent driving market, and subsequently exploring more automotive chip application scenarios will be the core direction of Axera's automotive business.