Next generation chipset from Ambarella
For many, the Ambarella name may not be as familiar as Intel, AMD or Qualcomm, but most likely it is one of the company’s video processors that is equipped with one of your devices. Also, among other things, we note that at CES 2021, the world-famous American company Alarm.com, which offers various high-tech security solutions for smart homes and businesses, presented its new contactless video intercom built on one of the latest single-chip chipsets from Ambarella.
Well, Ambarella itself, as part of the consumer electronics exhibition, announced its latest next-generation processor with artificial intelligence (AI) – CV5, which allows you to record 8K video at up to 60 frames per second, or up to four video streams in 4K mode. With such potential, the novelty can be used in anything from modern car cameras to CCTV cameras and drones. About it and will be discussed further.
CV5 chip structure
Potential CV5
Using 5nm manufacturing processes, the latest CV5 SoC combines the manufacturer’s AI engine called CVflow with Dual Arm A76 processors and can encode 8K video while consuming less than two watts of power. Such exemplary processing capabilities and low power consumption make the CV5 ideal for battery-powered cameras.
Developer on CVflow: “The CVflow® chip architecture is based on a deep understanding of the underlying computer vision algorithms. Unlike general purpose CPUs and GPUs, CVflow includes a dedicated image processing engine programmed with a high-level algorithm description, allowing our architecture to scale performance to trillions of operations per second with extremely low power consumption. With CVflow, customers can efficiently render their own CNNs trained with standard tools like Caffe and TensorFlow to run on Ambarella processors.”
With the arrival of this chipset, small devices such as action cameras will be able to shoot video at resolutions up to 8K at 30fps or 4K at up to 240fps. The CV5 will also support HDR processing as well as image stabilization, all on a single chip. And its intelligence allows it to simultaneously handle tasks such as face tracking, time-lapse video, and high ISO photography.
For 360-degree cameras, such as the Insta360 One X2, the processor will be able to work with two sensors with 8K resolution. And, as with action cameras, HDR shooting will be possible, and image stabilization and stitching can be done directly on the chip. Drones will be able to use the CV5 chip to realize photos and 8K videos, as well as features such as obstacle detection and avoidance, object tracking, and route planning.
Availability
It typically takes about a year for devices to become available using Ambarella’s latest chips,” said Christopher Day, Ambarella’s vice president of marketing and business development. This means we probably won’t see any CV5 cameras or drones until the end of this year or early 2022. But anyway, it’s worth the wait. By the way, there are rumors that the long-awaited third-generation Mavic drone will be equipped with this processor.