Coming to a road near you in late 2024: the first-ever all-electric full-size SUV from Cadillac. The automaker is already advertising an estimated 450-mile range, fast-charging capabilities and zero-to-60 mph acceleration in under five seconds.
But look a little deeper and you’ll also see that the ESCALADE IQ leverages several features that are part of the Snapdragon Digital Chassis portfolio. That’s Qualcomm’s name for a set of cloud-connected automotive platforms that got a concept-vehicle style introduction at CES 2023 and are intended to lay the foundation for software-defined vehicles (SDVs). The SDV vision allows automakers to deliver on-demand services and ongoing refinements via the cloud.
Among the solutions featured in the new vehicle are:
- Snapdragon Cockpit Platform: Designed to enable a services-oriented architecture, the platform provides an advanced GPU for visuals, AI engines for personalization and a software stack using hypervisors for virtualized processing. It also includes a flexible reference design system to support the creation of intelligent, customizable and Automotive Safety Integrity Level (ASIL)-compliant cockpits. Cadillac is leveraging the platform to power a curved, pillar-to-pillar 55 inch total diagonal LED display.
- Snapdragon Auto 5G Modem-RF Platform: Qualcomm’s first automotive-grade 5G platform ensures fast connectivity, quick network response times and reliability of safety and productivity features. The platform is 3GPP Release 15 compliant and engineered to support FDD and TDD networks, as well as standalone (SA) and non-standalone (NSA) modes of operation.
- Snapdragon Ride Platform: Qualcomm said its ride platform has gained momentum with a growing number of global automakers and Tier 1 suppliers since its launch in January 2020. The platform is designed to deliver low-latency control functions and high-performance, power-efficient AI computing for camera and radar processing. The Snapdragon Ride Vision System, featuring an open, scalable and modular vision software stack built on a 4 nm processing mode, was announced as an expansion to the product portfolio at CES 2022.
For Qualcomm, the launch of the ESCALADE IQ represents an extension of a long-standing collaboration with Cadillac, although it’s hardly the company’s only newsworthy partnership in the automotive space. Earlier this year, Electronics360 reported on a new car brand from Sony, Afeela, that will also make use of Snapdragon Digital Chassis SoCs.