This week, Santa Clara, California-based Ambarella introduced three new chips at the Las Vegas tech trade show CES 2017.
Ambarella's History
Ambarella is a company that has carved out a niche in image processing and video compression chips. The Santa Clara-based company has 660 employees and is generating revenue of $100 million a quarter.
The company's chips are already used in high-end drones from brand names in the industry such as Tuneec and DJI. Ambarella has also supplied chips to home security camera makers as well as action camera makers such as GoPro. Snapchat's augmented-reality glasses, dubbed Snapchat Spectacles, also use Ambarella's imaging chips. Chips produced by Ambarella are used as well in dashboard cameras used to provide proof of what really happened in case of a crash.
Now, the company is launching its three new image processing chips that will provide next-generation imaging features to sports cameras, drones, cars and virtual reality. The 4K and 8K nee imaging chips are presented in detail the company's website. Vice president of marketing and business development at Ambarella, Chris Day, said in an interview with VentureBeat that the company has captured high-market-share in the niche of flying cameras used in the drone business and now is ready to move into its "first electronic mirror application."
Ambarella's New 4K & 8K Image Processing Chips
The newly introduced A9AQ chip is a camera system-on-chip (SoC) that can be used in electronic mirrors in cars. The chip can process 4K images from multiple video recording systems or still cameras. The A9AQ chip is powered by an 800-megahertz dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 central processing unit (CPU). The ARM Cortex-A9 is usually used to handle imaging tasks in modern cars, from wireless networking and user interface to advanced driver assistance. For high-performance video camera applications, the Cortex-A9 chip comes with a companion Serdes chip.
Ambarella also introduced at CES its 8K UltraHD chip for drone cameras and virtual reality apps. The Ambarella H3 SoC is capable of delivering 4K UltraHD at 120 frames per second and 8K UltraHD at 30 frames per second. For VR, the H3 SoC could be used as the heart of 360-degree VR cameras.
The third chip introduced by Ambarella is the H22 SoC for next-generation 4K sports cameras and drones. The chip provides leading-edge video features. Using H.265 (HEVC) or H.264 (AVC) video formats, the H22 is capable of encoding 4K Ultra HD video at 60 frames per second.
The chip is made in a 14-nanometer process technology and also supports advanced Electronic Image Stabilization (EIS) up to 4K resolution. Significant processing power for customer applications is provided by the onboard 1.2 GHz Quad-Core ARM Cortex-A53 CPU. The chip can be used in advanced analytics applications, camera flight control, wireless networking and video stitching.
