Israel-based Valens Semiconductor, a provider of high-speed connectivity solutions for the automotive and audio-video markets, says it is now shipping engineering samples of its VA7000 chipset family to more than 25 automotive customers and partners, including four automotive OEMs and more than 10 Tier 1 prospective customers, for evaluation and integration into their platforms. The Valens VA7000 chipset family is claimed to be the first to integrate the MIPI A-PHY standard for in-vehicle sensor connectivity.
Since the MIPI Alliance released A-PHY for high-speed in-vehicle video connectivity in September 2020, the standard has gained significant momentum within the industry. In 2021, the IEEE standards association adopted A-PHY in full as one of its own standards, and major automotive companies have been working to integrate it into their next-generation solutions.
Valens says the performance of the VA7000 chipsets will enable automotive OEMs to enhance their advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) capabilities and take a step toward the software-defined vehicles of the future by providing a high bandwidth of 8Gbps per link (deserializer aggregating 32Gbps), with a roadmap to 16Gbps per link, coupled with a link distance of up to 15m. It also claims the industry’s lowest packet error rate of 10-19 .
The VA7000 chipsets will enable the removal of costly and proprietary bridge CSI-2 extension solutions widely used today, in favor of a digital signal processing (DSP)-based standardized protocol, which will simplify the connectivity infrastructure in the car.
“The release of the first products implementing A-PHY is an important milestone, not just for Valens but for the automotive industry as a whole,” said Gideon Kedem, SVP and head of automotive at Valens Semiconductor. “As more and more automotive players adopt the standard and spec it into their product roadmaps, the VA7000 is poised to be the keystone chipset of in-vehicle sensor connectivity for years to come.”