Samsung to supply new Exynos auto chip to Hyundai in close tie-up

Samsung Electronics Co., the world’s largest memory chipmaker, said on Wednesday it will supply one of its latest automotive chips to Hyundai Motor Co. to support the carmaker’s advanced features in its in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) systems.

While Samsung has already been supplying various types of vehicle semiconductors, including image sensors, to Hyundai, the Exynos Auto V920 marks the South Korean tech giant’s first collaboration with Hyundai in application processor (AP) chips that control vehicle systems like the human brain.

Samsung said it will closely work with Hyundai to begin supplying the advanced auto chip as early as 2025.

“We are thrilled to be collaborating with Hyundai Motor. We anticipate that this partnership will further solidify our position in the automotive infotainment space,” said Pyee Jae-geol, executive vice president of Sales & Marketing, System LSI Business at Samsung Electronics.

NEXT-GENERATION IVI SYSTEMS

The Exynos Auto V920 will power Hyundai’s next-generation IVI systems, supporting six high-pixel displays and 12 camera sensors using high-performance, low-electricity LPDDR5 memory capacity.

The new chip, Samsung’s third-generation automotive processor for IVI systems, will deliver an optimal in-vehicle experience by enabling a real-time display of critical driving information as well as seamless playback of graphics-rich video content and games on multiple displays.

The V920 CPU packs 10 of British chip design company ARM Ltd.’s latest cores optimized for autonomous driving, enabling 1.7 times faster performance than the previous generation CPUs, it said.

Significant improvements have also been made to the processor’s graphics and artificial intelligence (AI) performance, enhancing visual presentation on displays and optimizing driver interaction with in-car information.

To provide a rich graphical user interface (GUI), the V920 integrates advanced GPU cores with graphics processing capabilities, which are up to two times faster than its predecessor.

By incorporating the latest computing cores, the neural processing unit (NPU) achieves 2.7 times greater performance than the previous generation.

The upgrades will allow the V920 to support enhanced driver monitoring features to better detect the driver’s state and swiftly assess the surroundings, providing an even safer driving environment, Samsung said.

The Exynos Auto V920 chip is compliant with Automotive Safety Integrity Level B (ASIL-B) requirements defined by the ISO.

SMARTER, MORE CONNECTED

Samsung has been strengthening its high-tech chip lineup as global carmakers are rapidly adopting autonomous and in-vehicle infotainment systems, which has upped the demand for advanced auto chips.

In November 2021, Samsung said it would supply the Exynos Auto V7 to Volkswagen AG for the German carmaker’s IVI system, Car Application Server (ICAS) 3.1, developed by LG Electronics Inc.

In September of that year, multiple industry sources said Samsung was manufacturing Tesla Inc.’s next-generation hardware 4 (HW4.0) chip for its full self-driving (FSD) cars.

Samsung is also supplying the Exynos Auto 8890 processor chip and the Exynos Auto V9 to Germany’s Audi AG.

The chipmaker’s ISOCELL Auto 4AC, its first ISOCELL image sensor tailored for automotive applications, is used by several carmakers, including Hyundai.

Hyundai Motor receives OLED screens from Samsung Display Co. For its electric vehicles, Hyundai receives batteries from Samsung SDI Co.

According to market researcher IHS Markit, the global auto chip market is forecast to grow to $143 billion by 2029 from this year’s estimated $76 billion.

Write to Ik-Hwan Kim and Ye-Rin Choi at lovepen@hankyung.com

In-Soo Nam edited this article.