The World's Only 3D+AI Single Chip Solution Appears at the Light Expo

From the frequent attention to the machine vision track to the rapid growth of the robot industry against the trend, the 3D vision track is still hot.

On September 6, 2023, the high-profile 24th China International Optoelectronics Expo opened in Shenzhen. Reporters at the Expo saw that 3D machine vision technology is still the hot spot of the Expo, bringing more excellent application experience in industrial scenes, consumer scenes, medical, metauniverse and other fields.

At the exhibition, enterprises focusing on 3D visual perception technology in the industry showed their latest products and related applications of 3D visual technology. Among them, Yinniu Microelectronics (Wuxi) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Yinniu"), after releasing the first new 3D binocular stereo vision module C158 in China in 2021, has devoted itself to the solution of 3D stereo vision+AI single chip products. At this optical expo, the core self-developed series of chips and end-to-end full stack solutions were introduced, which can be said to usher in a highlight moment, The exhibition hall has attracted many people from inside and outside the industry to stop.

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Yinniu Booth Site

Yinniu Chip Appears at the Light Expo, Opening the Unlimited Possibility of "3D+AI"

Both the 3D vision field and the AI chip field belong to the hot track in recent years, and more and more new forces from hardware to chips to visual solutions have poured into the 3D market. How much imagination will it bring to the public when the industry is very busy? In the Yinniu exhibition hall, two self-developed system level chips have earned a lot of attention by virtue of the world's only performance point. It is reported that the NU4000 and NU4100 chips unveiled by Yinniu this time are the only system level chips in the world that integrate 3D depth perception, AI (artificial intelligence) and SLAM (real-time positioning and mapping) functions on a single chip in mass production.

According to the company, at present, Yinniu's chips and product solutions have been applied globally in leading enterprise products in many frontier application fields, such as pan robot, metauniverse, consumer electronics, logistics UAV, 3D scanning, etc. In the future, Yinniu will help the global intelligent terminal equipment to upgrade from 2D to 3D, and strive to become the world's leading semiconductor enterprise in the 3D vision era.

With the rapid development of artificial intelligence, AI chips have become a hot investment field. According to insiders, before AI applications have been verified in the market, existing general-purpose chips are usually used for parallel accelerated computing. Compared with the general chip solutions adopted by most global 3D vision enterprises, Yinniu has brought 3D+AI single chip solutions to the industry this time. Both chip products use 12nm advanced technology.

Yinniu self-developed chip

According to Yinniu, NU4000 chip integrates the algorithm of binocular stereo vision technology into chips. This chip not only contains the world's leading 3D perception processing hardware unit, but also integrates AI and SLAM hardware engines, effectively sharing system computing power, reducing system power consumption and cost. Compared with the former, the NU4100 chip, which was successfully mass produced in 2022, remains unchanged in depth perception and SLAM engine. However, it has integrated 2-way 4K ISP (image processing module) and iteratively upgraded the AI engine on the chip. Compared with the NU4000, AI computing power has almost doubled, helping customers achieve system upgrades at a lower cost and lower power consumption. The improvement of two key technical points has made the NU4100 easier to handle in more and more scenes where color images are combined with 3D vision (such as UAVs, 3D scanners, lawn mowers, etc.).

It is reported that up to now, no other companies have released similar products in the global market. The company plans to release a new NU4500 chip, which will further improve its performance indicators and computing power, and integrate the functions of the master chip on the basis of the previous chips. In recent years, the reason why the 3D vision field is sought after by capital and players is inseparable from its clear landing scene and huge market demand. It can be said that the gap between the market demand of consumer electronics, logistics industry, 3D scanning, medical detection and other industries to achieve intelligent upgrading through 3D vision applications and the existing technology in the market makes the development of technology particularly urgent. Yinniu Deep ploughing 3D vision+AI single chip solution not only conforms to the industry development trend, but also builds a moat of the company's core technology.

From 3D perception to computing to system Yinniu pushed 3D vision+AI single chip solution

In the exhibition hall, Yinniu introduced that the Yinniu 3D binocular stereo vision module C158 is the only 3D depth vision module in the market that supports SLAM algorithm, autonomous navigation and obstacle avoidance. Because of the characteristics of binocular stereo vision technology, C158 not only has a very good depth data effect indoors, but also performs well outdoors, The depth data is still accurate even when the strong light exceeds 150000 Lux.

The "answer" to the superior performance of Yinniu 3D vision module lies in its core self-developed chip. Light interference has always been an important subject in the field of 3D perception. Through the world's leading binocular stereo vision algorithm chip technology on self-developed chips, Yinniu has also become the only 3D perception technology company in the world that can completely resist natural light interference. The biggest highlight of self-developed series chips is to reduce the system energy consumption and computing burden. It is reported that many self-developed processor engines are built in the self-developed series of chips, including 3D depth processing engine, SLAM engine and general vision acceleration engine, which can provide powerful edge aware computing capabilities for coprocessors.

On D2C (depth to color), one of the basic demand functions of 3D vision application, the common practice in the industry is to align the computing power consumed by the host side, which increases the computing power burden of the system to a certain extent. Comparatively speaking, Yinniu D2C runs on the built-in hardware engine of the chip, greatly reducing the system power consumption, cost and computing power.

In terms of SLAM (real-time positioning and mapping) algorithm, Yinniu products also achieve higher efficiency. Compared with the general method in the industry, the software algorithm is directly run on the system processor, and the Yinniu series chips realize the SLAM chip, dividing the SLAM process into different chip modules to run, saving the computing power of the system master chip.

In terms of AI, NU series chips also achieve more convenient algorithm interfaces and higher computing power. Through the fully programmable AI CNN engine built in NU series chips, the engine currently provides up to 3.5TOPS computing power, not only providing complete AI/deep learning solutions and algorithm library, but also providing customized AI algorithm API interface to meet the flexible needs of customers, effectively saving system computing power, reducing system power consumption and cost.

From high-precision real-time 3D perception to computing and then to systems, Yinniu 3D+AI single chip solution leads the global 3D industry reform. Up to now, Yinniu has launched a number of binocular stereo vision module products with built-in self-developed chips, including R132 series modules with large FOV, smaller size, and more focused pan robot scenes. It is reported that this series of modules aims at the large field of view requirements highly concerned by pan robot customers. At the same time, the blind area of R132 series modules is as small as 10cm, better supporting the robot's autonomous obstacle avoidance in narrow spaces.

Silver cow binocular stereo vision module R130, R112

At the Light Expo, Yinniu also brought the latest vision modules released in 2023 - R130 and R112, making breakthroughs in the level of robot short-range depth measurement to meet more market demands. According to the company, R112 module obtains the depth color alignment image of objects based on binocular stereo vision technology. The detection distance is up to 5cm, and the accuracy is at the submillimeter level. It can pick up and place small objects in a short distance with high accuracy, and can also be used in defect detection.

R130 module is based on binocular stereo vision technology to obtain the depth image of objects. At the same time, it uses a color camera to collect the color image of objects. It is suitable for perception and measurement of 3D objects at a distance of 0.2m-3m, and can be widely used in robot perception, obstacle avoidance, navigation and other scenes.

However, the commercial situation is still an effective indicator of whether a technology can become the "future". According to Yinniu, at present, Yinniu 3D binocular stereo vision module and 3D+AI single chip solution have been recognized and adopted by many international first-line manufacturers, with more than 100 enterprise customers, and the main application scenarios include pan robot, metauniverse, logistics UAV, AIoT, smart medical, consumer electronics and other fields.

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