Cepton Inc. has introduced an automotive-qualified lidar point cloud application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) processor for next-generation vehicles.
Called Komodo, the custom ASIC is designed to significantly improve point cloud quality while replacing several merchant silicon devices to dramatically reduce cost, Cepton said.
The ASIC was developed in-house by Cepton at its headquarters in Silicon Valley and will be integrated into several models of the company’s lidars. This ASIC follows Cepton’s Iguana chip that was unveiled in 2019.
“In the context of the U.S. CHIPS bill, we see the increasing importance of minimizing reliance on the semiconductor supply chain by using our own ASICs,” said Jun Pei, CEO and co-founder at Cepton. “Cepton will continue to drive its ASIC development and expand its leadership in automotive lidar at the chip level.”
No FPGA reliance
Traditional lidar sensors have needed a field programmable gate array (FPGA) and merchant silicon devices to generate a 3D point cloud. However, this comes at a significant cost premium, lower efficiency, bigger size and high-power consumption, Cepton said.
Additionally, this leaves lidar makers more susceptible to supply chain vulnerabilities if FPGA vendors or merchant suppliers encounter issues getting enough supply. Having a dedicated supply of ASICs will reduce prices of lidar for automotive OEMs allowing for mass market adoption of the technology as well as increasing scalability of the company’s lidar offerings.
Other features of the Komodo ASIC are:
- Multiple times faster than FPGAs
- Peak throughput of up to 12,000,000 points per second
- Consumes under a watt of power
- 10 times the cost reduction compared to FPGA-enabled lidar
- Smaller footprint
- Built-in functional ISO26262 ASIL-B certified safety monitor
- Multiple camera interfaces and high-speed data channels
