Innoviz

The challenge

Innoviz is a leading provider of high-performance, solid-state LiDAR sensors and perception software that bring vision to the automotive, drone, robotics, mapping and other industries to enable safe autonomy.
Innoviz contacted IMDT because they needed an adaptable solution, that could work with any car model, to connect high speed and resolution video feed to a car’s software. They wanted to design a computer module that would connect the LiDAR sensors via GMSL on one end, to the car processor via ethernet on the other end. They had created the product requirements but didn’t have the resources available to develop it internally.

The process

Using Innoviz’s product requirements, the IMDT team utilized its knowledge in video and processors to design the architecture of the system, which included three disciplines:
● Mechanics: Automotive compliance, ip67, thermal design, shock & vibration design
● Hardware: FPGA, serdes (6Gbps), power, compliance with automotive group standards
● Software: Kernel drivers, embedded software and dedicated drivers developed by IMDT.

Arnon Tadmor, CTO of IMDT, led the hardware and mechanical design for the project, and Ram Boukobza, a developer with over 15 years’ experience delivering full software solutions for complex video and computer vision systems, led the software development.
The IMDT team worked closely with Innoviz’s project manager, conducting weekly status presentations that included risk management, Gantt tracking, dealing with bottlenecks and more.

The solution

The IMDT team found the NXP i.MX8M Mini family application processors to be most suitable and cost effective for this challenge, and chose to use the i.MX8 mini, connected to a small FPGA. However, the high throughput requirements of the LiDAR sensor (900Mbps) presented a challenge. The team wrote a dedicated driver in the i.MX to handle the high throughput requirement in the kernel and used the lattice FPGA to address an issue with the MIPI interface support.

This solution was delivered on time, and Innoviz is the process of integrating it into their full system.