Nvidia has introduced the successor to their Parker SoC mostly targeting self-driving cars and artificial intelligence applications, with Xavier SoC featuring 8 custom ARMv8 cores, a 512-core Volta GPU, a VPU (Video Processing Unit) supporting 8K video decode and encode and HDR (High Dynamic Range), as well as a computer vision accelerator (CVA).
Anandtech published a comparison table with Tegra X1 (Erista), Parker, and Xavier using currently available information.
Xavier | Parker | Erista (Tegra X1) | |
CPU | 8x NVIDIA Custom ARM | 2x NVIDIA Denver + 4x ARM Cortex-A57 |
4x ARM Cortex-A57 + 4x ARM Cortex-A53 |
GPU | Volta, 512 CUDA Cores | Pascal, 256 CUDA Cores | Maxwell, 256 CUDA Cores |
Memory | ? | LPDDR4, 128-bit Bus | LPDDR3, 64-bit Bus |
Video Processing | 7680×4320 Encode & Decode | 3840x2160p60 Decode 3840x2160p60 Encode |
3840x2160p60 Decode 3840x2160p30 Encode |
Transistors | 7B | ? | ? |
Manufacturing Process | TSMC 16nm FinFET+ | TSMC 16nm FinFET+ | TSMC 20nm Planar |
The company goes on to say a single Xavier-based AI car supercomputer will be able to replace today’s fully configured DRIVE PX 2 with two Parker SoCs and two Pascal GPUs. The new platform will be much smaller as illustrated below, consumes much less power at 20 Watt, or 25% of the power consumption of PX DRIVE 2, and deliver the same AI performance (20 TOPS), as well as around 33% better integer performance (160 SPECINT).
Xavier will start sampling in Q4 2017, and be available to automakers, tier 1 suppliers, startups and research institutions working on self-driving cars.
Nvidia has also uploaded a video showing the deep learning capabilities of their PX DRIVE 2 computer on a self-driving car that learned to drive in California, before driving in New Jersey.
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
I see many lifes saved someday when we all use that kind of cars.
Lets celebrate a worldwide day of zero traffic deaths somewhere into 2018
You mean 2028. (If we are lucky…)