Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Ride Flex SoC—The Foundation for the Next Generation of Intelligent Vehicles
By combining cockpit and safety features, the Snapdragon Ride Flex SoC allows automakers to build more connected, convenient, and safer vehicles while reducing costs and complexity.
As vehicles become more complex via cutting-edge cloud-connected infotainment and safer through sophisticated Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) and Automated Driving (AD) features, the core System on Chip (SoC) hardware required to support these ever-proliferating features needs to not only keep pace but be more efficient. An additional challenge for automakers is to design systems that are not only reliable and steadfastly safe over the long haul but that are also scalable for vehicle technology advances that are constantly down the road. This incessant surge of tech in new cars also merges with a move by automakers towards a more centralized electrical/electronic (E/E) vehicle architecture that relies on fewer electronic control units (ECUs) that not only reduces complexity but also cost in components and weight in wiring.
Snapdragon Ride Flex Gains Traction
These overlapping trends and challenges in automotive are why Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Ride Flex SoC—an automotive SoC architecture that supports mixed criticality workloads such as cockpit/infotainment and drive/ADAS and AD functions on the same SoC and across diverse compute resources—has gained traction since debuting three years ago. As automakers shift to less complex and more scalable E/E vehicle architectures, the Flex SoC supports these efforts by incorporating a software platform that combines multiple concurrent virtual machines with independently functioning operating systems (OS) and hypervisor support to run isolated virtual tasks.
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Additionally, the Flex SoC includes special hardware design characteristics to meet the varying requirements for mixed criticality workloads between cockpit and ADAS/AD tasks. This not only includes associated features such as driver monitoring and automated park-assist system, but at the same time enables advanced cloud-connected infotainment systems, gaming displays, and reconfigurable digital driver displays with immersive high-end graphics. To meet the highest level of automotive safety, the Flex SoC enables a hardware architecture that supports isolation, freedom from interference, and quality-of-service (QoS) between infotainment and critical safety functions while a dedicated Automotive Safety Integrity Level D (ASIL-D) subsystem manages critical functions such braking and steering control for ADAS and AD features.
The Flex SoC comes pre-integrated with the industry-proven Snapdragon Ride Pilot stack that supports ADAS features ranging from those in entry-level vehicles using a single front camera up to the most advanced systems with multiple cameras, radar, lidar sensors, and using high-definition maps. This, by design, supports a wide range of vehicles with everything from basic ADAS features to the highest levels of AD capability and to meet Europe’s rigorous New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) requirements and the EU’s mandatory General Safety Regulations (GSR). And because the Flex SoC is inherently scalable, automakers can easily build upon and improve their ADAS and AD features in future vehicles.
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Because it’s built on the established success of the Snapdragon Digital Chassis, the Flex SoC is also compatible with the companion Snapdragon Auto Connectivity platform that provides 5G connectivity for low-latency access to edge, cloud resources to enable vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V), and vehicle-to-everything (V2X) applications. In addition, the Snapdragon Car-to-Cloud Platform provides over-the-air (OTA) updates for the Snapdragon Digital Chassis, making the Flex SoC ideal to accelerate the advancement of truly software-defined vehicles (SDVs).
Snapdragon Ride Flex SoC Hits the Road
Currently, more than 10 automotive partners are developing next-generation intelligent vehicles based on the Flex SoC. Several new models equipped with the Flex SoC were recently rolled out in China, with future vehicles that use the technology planned by global brands for worldwide availability. This initial deployment is proof positive that the overall Snapdragon Automotive Platform and Flex SoC are assisting a wide range of global automaker and Tier-1 ecosystem partners to pioneer the mass production of mixed-criticality central compute into new vehicles.
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Within three months, multiple new models featuring the Flex SoC have been announced in rapid succession. This reveals quick progress among Qualcomm’s OEM and Tier-1 partners in advancing cockpit/ADAS integration and validating the intelligent capabilities that this platform enables. In October the new ARCFOX Alpha T5 officially launched, and in November the Dongfeng Nissan N6 started pre-sales.
The launch of BAIC Group’s new ARCFOX Alpha T5 is notable as the first mass-produced vehicle model in China to feature both infotainment and ADAS/AD on a single Flex SoC to enable what’s called End-To-End Urban Navigation on Autopilot. ARCFOX Alpha T5 uses the integrated architecture of single Flex SoC as the vehicle’s “central brain” and to evenly allocate computing resources. The result is highly efficient and coordinated execution of tasks within an integrated system, whether for cockpit/infotainment features, ADAS/AD functions, or both.
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Hardware footprint and power optimization are facilitated by combining two domain controllers into one, decreasing space requirement by 52% and power consumption by 15%. Since the Flex SoC uses high-speed communication on the same board to drastically condense the data transmission link, the communication bandwidth is increased and the latency for information transfer between the cockpit and driving domains is decreased, allowing instant response to occupant and vehicle commands.
In the new Dongfeng Nissan N6, the Flex SoC enables personalized cockpit capabilities such as customizable shortcuts for favored functions, and an AI voice assistant that includes unclear command, dialect recognition, and proactive intelligent recommendations. With ADAS, it supports an end-to-end assisted driving system and automated parking assistance.
Snapdragon Ride Flex SoC Makes It All Possible
The Flex SoC makes this all possible by leveraging advantages both in high-performance and high-power efficiency, allowing OEMs and Tier-1s to develop a more integrated and intelligent cockpit experience via a more streamlined architecture, more efficient computing resources, and more consistent system performance in a wide variety of vehicles. The Flex SoC’s heterogeneous computing design that enables simultaneous support for mixed-criticality workloads not only helps automakers and Tier-1s reduce cost and complexity but also improves data throughput efficiency for more consistent system responses and provides a higher security level.
One of the defining characteristics of a true SDV is reusable software, and cross-platform migration capabilities that allow automakers to build scalable software-first architectures. The Flex SoC allows seamless migration of algorithms already developed on Snapdragon Cockpit Platforms or Snapdragon Ride Platforms, improving the reuse rate of software and maintaining OTA upgrade reliability to provide greater flexibility for vehicle planning and software development.
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As the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) in vehicles accelerates, there’s also an increasing necessity for application orchestration between the cockpit and ADAS domains through Agentic AI. By efficiently apportioning computing resources between the two domains, the Flex SoC enables large AI models to maintain a stable, unified response and experience performance across different systems.
As infotainment and ADAS/AD features continue to advance and become more common and in demand across vehicle segments, Qualcomm’s cockpit-infotainment/ADAS-AD integration provides automakers and Tier-1s with a more efficient, harmonious, and secure technological foundation. This in turn will accelerate SDV development, as well as support rapid innovation for the auto industry and make driving more connected, entertaining, and safer.
