Nvidia Adds Two High Power Computing Solutions To Its Automotive Portfolio
Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) unveiled new automotive computers (Nvidia Drive) to open the 2015 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. The company expanded its automotive product portfolio with two highly advanced automotive computing platforms, both of which are based on its latest CPU offerings, including: 1) the NVIDIA DRIVE PX, a new platform for developing auto-pilot capabilities using its latest Maxwell GPU; and, 2) the NVIDIA DRIVE CX, for creating the most advanced digital cockpit systems. DRIVE PX has inputs for up to 12 high-resolution cameras, and can process up to 1.3 gigapixels per second. The DRIVE CX can power up to 17 million pixels on multiple displays, which is more than 10 times that of current model cars. [1]
“Mobile supercomputing”, as the company terms it, will be the the central to tomorrow’s car, in Nvidia’s view. Automotive electronics is a large market and it is going through a transition as cars have increased computing capability in both the drive train, control, and the dashboard. Increasingly, dashboard functionality within cars (infotainment system, digital cluster and automatic driver assistance) are being computerized. Nvidia claims that the number of visual computing-focused processors in a car is growing at a rapid pace. Strategy Analytics expects the market for Advanced Driver Assistance Systems to be worth around $15 billion by 2016, with a CAGR of 23%.((Nvidia’s CEO Discusses F4Q2014 Results – Earnings Call Transcript, Seeking Alpha, February 12, 2014))
Nvidia also announced the addition of Tegra X1 to its Tegra chip family. Tegra X1 utilizes Nvidia’s most advanced PC architecture for graphics processing units, called Maxwell, that has a 256-core GPU on top of a 8-CPU, giving it more horsepower than the world’s fastest supercomputer of 15 years ago. [2] NVIDIA DRIVE PX utilizes the new Tegra X1 mobile super chip while the NVIDIA DRIVE CX is available with either a Tegra X1 or Tegra K1 processor. Both the DRIVE PX auto-pilot development platform and DRIVE CX cockpit computer will be available in the second quarter of 2015.
Nvidia has been working on building its automotive computing platform for over a decade. The company expects its Tegra business to be driven by three key growth drivers – mobile devices and automotive and gaming systems. Though the mobile device segment is the largest sub-segment in the Tegra division, the automotive segment is the fastest growing and offers higher gross margins (compared to devices). The company’s auto infotainment systems revenue nearly doubled year-over-year in Q3 2015, with revenue up 11% sequentially. At present, there are more than 6 million cars using NVIDIA processors on the road, and the company expects another 25 million processors to be integrated into vehicles over the next 5 years. [3]
Nvidia derives approximately 13% of its valuation from the Tegra division, as per our estimate. We believe that Tegra processors revenue will cross $1.5 billion over our review period.
Our price estimate of $20 for Nvidia is slightly below the current market price.
See our complete analysis for Nvidia
View Interactive Institutional Research (Powered by Trefis):
- Nvidia Paves Way for Tomorrow’s Cars With NVIDIA DRIVE Automotive Computers, Nvidia Press Release, January 4, 2015 [↩]
- Nvidia unveils Tegra X1 ‘superchip’ at CES 2015, Cnet, January 4, 2015 [↩]
- Nvidia Powers New Honda Infotainment System, Nvidia Newsroom, October 1, 2014 [↩]