Gasgoo Awards 2023 applicant: Valens VA7000 chipset family from Valens Semiconductor

Product: Valens VA7000 chipset family  

Description

The Valens VA7000 chip is a cutting-edge semiconductor solution designed to address the growing demand for high-speed data transmission and reliable connectivity in various industries. This advanced chip offers a wide range of features and capabilities, making it a versatile and efficient solution for numerous applications.   Key features of the Valens VA7000 chip include:  1. High-Speed Data Transmission: The chip supports ultra-high-speed data transmission, allowing for seamless and real-time communication of large volumes of data. This capability is essential for industries such as automotive, professional audiovisual, industrial automation, and smart home, where the rapid exchange of data is critical.  2. Multiple High-Definition Streams: The VA7000 chip can handle multiple high-definition video and audio streams simultaneously, enabling enhanced multimedia experiences in applications like AV integration, smart home entertainment, and virtual reality.  3. Low Latency: With minimal latency in data transmission, the chip ensures smooth and responsive performance in time-sensitive applications like autonomous driving, industrial control systems, and gaming.  4. Robust Connectivity: The VA7000 chip provides robust connectivity options, supporting a variety of wired and wireless communication protocols. This enables seamless integration with existing infrastructure and ensures compatibility with different devices and systems.  5. Scalable Architecture: The chip's architecture is designed for scalability, allowing it to be customized and optimized for specific industry requirements. This flexibility makes it adaptable to a wide range of applications, from small-scale deployments to large-scale enterprise solutions.  6. Energy Efficiency: The VA7000 chip is engineered for energy efficiency, ensuring optimal power consumption while delivering high performance. This feature is particularly valuable in applications where power efficiency is crucial, such as battery-powered devices or IoT implementations.  7. Reliability and Security: The chip incorporates robust security features to safeguard data integrity and protect against potential cyber threats. Its reliability ensures consistent performance even in challenging environments, making it suitable for critical applications that demand uninterrupted connectivity.  Overall, the Valens VA7000 chip represents a state-of-the-art semiconductor solution that addresses the complex connectivity needs of modern industries. Its high-speed data transmission, support for multiple streams, low latency, and energy efficiency make it a promising choice for a wide range of applications, from automotive and professional AV to industrial automation and smart home technologies. With its advanced features and adaptability, the VA7000 chip is poised to play a pivotal role in shaping the future of connected devices and applications.

Unique advantages

•Standardization: Unlike proprietary solutions used today, the Valens VA7000 chipset is compliant with a standard. This allows interoperability between the various components of a sensor system, freeing OEMs from relying on any single supplier. •Ultra-High Bandwidth: Due to insufficient bandwidth of proprietary solutions, which can be traced to outdated mechanisms of dealing with EMI, OEMs have had to limit architectural advancements. The VA7000 offers 8Gbps links with an unprecedented, independently-validated error rate of 1E-19, allowing OEMs to move past edge processing towards a more centralized model. • Advanced Time Synchronization: The VA7000 provides advanced time sync services that allow OEMs to implement next-gen solutions for applications such as night vision, surround view, and driver monitoring. The chipsets include an embedded Pulse Width Modulation (PWM), removing the need for an external circuit, including costly programmable components such as an FPGA or CPLD. The PWM is also highly configurable, allowing for complex mechanisms like fixed delays, configurable shifts, offsets, and more. The internal PWM allows for extremely accurate clock sync and frame sync, with less than 1 microsecond of jitter.

Application

The Valens VA7000 chip is designed for various application scenarios where high-speed and reliable data transmission is critical. Some of the key application scenarios include:  1. Automotive Connectivity: The VA7000 chip is used in automotive infotainment systems, connecting multiple displays and devices, and enabling high-quality audio and video streaming throughout the vehicle.  2. Professional AV Solutions: It is utilized in professional audiovisual setups, such as conference rooms, auditoriums, and event venues, where real-time high-definition video distribution is essential.  3. Industrial Automation: The VA7000 chip plays a crucial role in industrial automation, enabling fast and reliable communication between machines, control systems, and sensors in factory settings.  4. Smart Homes: It is used in smart home applications, connecting various IoT devices, smart TVs, and home entertainment systems for seamless multimedia streaming.  5. Gaming Consoles: The chip facilitates high-speed data transfer between gaming consoles and peripherals, providing an enhanced gaming experience with low latency and high bandwidth.  6. Medical Imaging: In the medical field, the VA7000 chip is employed for transmitting high-resolution medical images and video streams between imaging devices and displays.  7. Digital Signage: It powers digital signage installations in shopping malls, airports, and other public spaces, ensuring real-time content delivery to multiple displays.  8. Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR): The VA7000 chip enables smooth and immersive VR and AR experiences by transmitting high-quality audio and video content to headsets and peripherals.  9. Video Surveillance: It is used in video surveillance systems for transmitting live video feeds from security cameras to monitoring centers over long distances.  10. Aerospace and Defense: The chip finds applications in aerospace and defense industries for transmitting critical data and video feeds between aircraft and ground control stations.  11. Data Centers: The VA7000 chip facilitates high-speed data communication between servers and storage devices in data centers, ensuring efficient data handling.  These are just a few examples of the diverse application scenarios where the Valens VA7000 chip is utilized to provide efficient and reliable data transmission, supporting seamless connectivity in a wide range of industries. On the road to higher levels of autonomous driving, the automotive industry has been hampered by the lack of a high-bandwidth, standardized long-reach connectivity solution. Instead of being able to funnel raw data from cameras, radars, and lidars to a central ECU, which would be ideal to create complete perception for the vehicle of its surround environment, OEMs have had to send processed data due to limitations of the available connectivity solutions.    2023 will mark the beginning of the end of this legacy processing architecture, as the automotive ecosystem finds new ways to advance sensor fusion with Valens’ VA7000 MIPI A-PHY compliant chipsets. This process has already begun, as vendors of cameras, radars, and lidars, are all innovating with the new standard.   For cameras, A-PHY now includes support for Mobileye’s EyeQ5 platform and a demonstration of an 8Gbps Mobileye solution with the VA7000 chipsets has been shown publicly. Another example of camera-based innovations with MIPI A-PHY comes from Sony, which has spoken publicly of 8MP and even 15MP cameras, given the new bandwidth available from the A-PHY solution.   Radars are set for a complete transformation thanks to A-PHY. Instead of edge processing, which diminish the effectiveness of this invaluable sensor type, the Valens VA7000 chipset is enabling radar companies to transition processing to the central ECU, enabling the creation of smaller, cheaper, less power-intensive radars. Smart Radar Systems, a Korea-based company, demonstrated this new “centralized processing radar architecture” at CES 2023, showing a radar that was just 25% the size of its previous generation of radars.   LiDARs are also being revolutionized by A-PHY and Valens’ VA7000 chipsets. Also at CES 2023, Innoviz debuted its newest product – the Innoviz 360o– which leverages the robustness of the A-PHY technology to deliver data through a rotating transformer that includes a gap of air. Innoviz tried to achieve this connectivity with other solutions on the market, but only Valens’ VA7000 was capable of this feat.    Companies that are serving the growing demand for increased safety in today and tomorrow’s cars are increasingly embracing A-PHY as the standard for high bandwidth sensor connectivity. These companies, which include Tier-1s, camera sensor companies, radar and LiDAR suppliers, component manufacturers, and testing equipment companies, believe that A-PHY is the solution that will allow the industry to move past the proprietary technologies used today towards creating an interoperable ecosystem.    The VA7000 chipsets are opening the floodgates of innovation for OEMs and these suppliers, enabling a standardized connectivity solution that can handle the ultra-high bandwidth requirements of next-generation sensors and ECUs, and ultimately usher in the era of advanced sensor fusion.

Prospect

The future prospects of the Valens VA7000 chip are highly promising, driven by the increasing demand for high-speed data transmission and reliable connectivity across various industries. Some key factors contributing to its positive outlook include:  1. Advancements in Automotive Connectivity: As the automotive industry continues to embrace advanced infotainment systems, autonomous driving, and connected car technologies, the need for efficient data communication within vehicles is growing. The VA7000 chip's capabilities to handle multiple high-definition streams and support the automotive industry's requirements for reliable connectivity position it well for future automotive applications.  2. Proliferation of AV Solutions: Professional audiovisual setups in corporate environments, educational institutions, and entertainment venues are becoming more sophisticated, with higher resolutions and increasing numbers of connected devices. The VA7000 chip's ability to deliver high-quality video and audio in real-time makes it a valuable solution for AV integrators and system designers.  3. Expansion of Industrial Automation: Industry 4.0 and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) are driving the digital transformation of industrial processes. The VA7000 chip's robustness, low latency, and high bandwidth make it suitable for reliable communication within smart factories and industrial automation systems.  4. Growing Smart Home Market: With the rise of smart homes and the proliferation of IoT devices, there is an increasing need for seamless connectivity and high-speed data transmission. The VA7000 chip's ability to handle multiple device connections and deliver high-quality media content aligns with the demands of the smart home market.  5. Integration into Emerging Technologies: The VA7000 chip's features and performance are well-suited for integration into emerging technologies such as virtual reality, augmented reality, and immersive multimedia experiences. As these technologies continue to advance, the demand for high-speed data transmission will increase, creating more opportunities for the VA7000 chip.  6. Evolving Data Center Requirements: Data centers are continually seeking more efficient solutions for handling large volumes of data and ensuring fast and reliable communication between servers and storage devices. The VA7000 chip's high-speed capabilities and low latency make it a viable option for addressing data center requirements.  7. Continuous R&D and Innovation: Valens, as a leading semiconductor company, is likely to invest in research and development to further enhance the capabilities of the VA7000 chip. Ongoing innovation and improvements in performance can contribute to its continued relevance and competitiveness in the market.  Overall, the Valens VA7000 chip is well-positioned to cater to the increasing demand for high-speed data transmission and reliable connectivity across diverse industries. Its advanced features, along with the company's commitment to innovation, make it a promising technology for future applications and scenarios. The A-PHY standard continues to evolve and develop as we speak. A-PHY 1.1 doubles the uplink and downlink speed, offering up to 32Gb/s downlinks and a 200Mb/s uplink. The MIPI Alliance A-PHY working group is already working on A-PHY 2.0 and we look forward to seeing the fruits of that activity once it is released. So good is A-PHY that only a few weeks after the launch of A-PHY 1.0, the IEEE adopted it as a standard of their own under their industry affiliate programme.   This adoption has now been completed, and A-PHY is not just a MIPI specification, but an IEEE specification (IEEE 2977-2021). This adoption is significant both in terms of the IEEE endorsing A-PHY as a technology solution, but it also means that A-PHY is now accessible not only to the 400 members of the MIPI Alliance, but also to the hundreds of companies in the IEEE. I would expect the IEEE to endorse future versions of A-PHY as well.   A-PHY is a standardised solution offering multi-gigabit link speeds for sensor and display connectivity – things like cameras, radars, lidars, etc. There are many companies that have publicly endorsed A-PHY and those public statements have come from companies such as Tier 1s Aptiv and Denso, camera and sensor vendors such as Omnivision, Leopard Imaging and Sunny Optical, SoC (System on a Chip) vendors like Mobileye, System in Package (SiP) vendors such as LG-Innotek, connector vendors such as Sumitomo, and test equipment vendors like Keysight.