Christmas 2021: Is the world still flat?
Dear videantis customer, partner, friend or other contact,
it’s almost Christmas. Again. So let me start off this videantis Christmas newsletter with my best wishes – may your holidays be filled with joy this year -, and a guarantee: this text will not be about Corona.
The topic I’d like to elaborate on in this text is a challenge that most companies believed they had mastered already: supply chain. Truth is, the world is not as flat a Thomas Friedman had sketched it out in his excellent book more than 16 years ago (read the summary on Wikipedia here, in case you’re interested). Maybe it was for some time. However, “Globalization 3.0”, as Friedman called it, has proven to be a fragile and imperfect system.
A temporary change in demand forecast, some not so surprising changes in consumer behaviour and a pinch of global political friction led to some serious “supply chain turmoil”. This isn’t happening only in the semiconductor industry, but, I believe, this is where the biggest effects will be seen or are already visible:
- Big investments in semiconductor foundries, e.g. in Japan, the US and even Europe
- Governmental funding of semiconductors, e.g., in the US or in Europe
- Companies starting to develop, or at least specify, their own chips, e.g., vehicle manufacturers
Now, will this be a flash in the pan? Or is this a lessons learned on the importance of semiconductors? Or will it eventually lead to excess supply of semiconductor manufacturing resources? The future is still to be written…
Anyway, besides these intricacies, a lot of interesting stuff did happen this year. For videantis, we made exciting progress in various areas (see below) and there is more to come in 2022. Stay tuned!
Stephan Janouch, Director Marketing @ videantis
videantis achieves Automotive SPICE® Level 2 certification
videantis, a leading supplier of deep learning, computer vision, image processing, and video coding solutions, powering already more than 10 million cars on the road, announces the achievement of Automotive SPICE® Level 2 certification (Automotive SPICE® is a registered trademark of the Verband der Automobilindustrie e.V. (VDA)).
Automotive SPICE® (Software Process Improvement and Capability dEtermination) is a domain specific version of the international Standard ISO 15504 to assess automotive suppliers regarding their capabilities in design, development, testing, and maintenance of software.
videantis processing platform reduces cost, increases flexibility of fail-operational systems
The concept for this solution was developed within the European PRYSTINE (Programmable Systems for Intelligence in Automobiles) project.
For three years, and equipped with a budget of € 50 Million, about 60 project partners were collaborating to build a Fail-operational Urban Surround perceptION (FUSION) based on Radar and LiDAR sensor fusion and control functions, eventually enabling safe automated driving in urban and rural environments.
The output of this project helps to address advanced functional safety requirements on embedded videantis-based multiprocessor systems up to ISO26262 ASIL D.
videantis and Continental sign strategic supplier contract and announce SOPs with videantis-enabled camera system
videantis has been working with Continental towards developing their next-generation smart rear view cameras. The automotive-grade software and development tools for its processors, which videantis both supplied to Continental, are deployed through several OEMs and in various car platforms already starting earlier this year.
The SoCs (systems-on-chip) sourced from a leading global semiconductor supplier for a smart camera program are based on videantis’ proprietary processing architecture and are accompanied by programming tools originating from videantis.
videantis passes milestone of enabling 10 million production vehicles
For the last couple of years, growth in the automotive electronics industry has been fueled by the implementation of sophisticated active and passive safety systems. Specifically, Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), leading towards higher levels of automated driving, are relying on more sensors, more data and hence require more compute power.
More than 10 million cars have been shipped with videantis-based chips inside used for ADAS and other high-end applications. Further SOPs coming up in the following months.
