Author: Techtime

Mobileye and Nissan goes to car-generated maps

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The car generated mapping is entering a new phase with the cooperation between Jerusalem-based Mobileye and the Korean car manufacturer Nissan Motor. Mobileye announced today an agreement with Nissan to generate anonymized, crowd-sourced data to create next-generation precision maps. The maps will be used as a source of localization, foresight, and redundancy in order to enable safe, robust autonomous vehicles in the future.

The agreement is the next step after successful proof-of-concept work in 2016 that culminated in Mobileye’s REM (Road Experience Management) mapping technology, being utilized in Nissan’s autonomous vehicle demonstration in London (photo above). It also follows another cooperation between the two companies:  The ProPILOT, Nissan’s system that utilizes significant Mobileye technology to enable single-lane highway driving with autonomous control of steering, acceleration, and braking.

Mobileye’s Road Experience Management technology

The agreement furthers an inclusive approach, as data from multiple automakers can be merged to create a robust and rapidly-updated maps. Professor Amnon Shashua, Chairman and CEO of Mobileye said: “We now have significant commitments from multiple global automakers to generate and share data from camera-equipped ADAS vehicles, and then utilize the resulting Global RoadBook as a critical input within autonomous vehicle systems.”

The two partners will utilize Mobileye’s Road Experience Management (REM) data generation technology. REM is a mapping engine comprised of three layers: harvesting agents (any camera-equipped vehicle), map cloud server and map-consuming agents (autonomous vehicle). The harvester collect and transmit data about the driving path’s geometry and stationary landmarks around it. Mobileye’s real-time geometrical and semantic analysis, implemented in the harvesting agent compress the information to less than 10KB/km on average to be sent to the cloud.

The cloud server aggregates and reconciles the continuous stream of data into a highly accurate map, called Roadbook. The last link in the mapping chain is localization: in order for any map to be used by an autonomous vehicle, the vehicle must be able to localize itself within it. Mobileye software running within the map-consuming agent (the autonomous vehicle) automatically localizes the vehicle within the Roadbook by real-time detection of all landmarks stored in it. REM is designed to allow different OEMs to take part in the construction of the Roadbook.

Intel, BMW and Vollkswagen

Earlier this year BMW Group announced it will embed Mobileye’s REM data generation technology in newly developed BMW Group models, entering the market in 2018. It joined Vollkswagen following its decision to turn its fleet into map data gathering machines base on Mobileye’s REM technology.

Mobileye is a global leader in the development of computer vision and machine learning, data analysis, localization and mapping for Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) and autonomous driving. Today, 27 Global automakers rely on Mobileye technology to make their vehicles safer over 15 million Vehicles worldwide, while 13 automakers are working with Mobileye to enable autonomous driving. In mid March 2017, Intel announced an agreement to buy Mobileye for $15.3 billion.

SkyX develops autonomous drone to Oil and Gas Industry

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The Israeli-Canadian aerospace startup SkyX has emerged this month from its stealth mode and announced the revolutionary SkyOne, a fully Autonomous drone to the Oil and Gas Industries, and the preparations to secure its Round A financing. SkyX was founded by a former Captain in the Israeli Air Force and a Drone Pilot, Didi Horn, and has developed Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (drones) to inspect pipelines for damage, as well as for mapping and security surveillance.

Didi Horn

SkyOne drone offer Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL), autonomous flight and recharging and can travel at 150km/h for 70 min. It detects leaks, vandalism, vegetation encroachment and more. SkyOne is able to recharge itself in the field with no need to return to home base: It flies to the nearest available xStation, where it recharges in a weather-shielded dome before continuing its mission. The company is able to control either an individual UAV or an entire fleet and can monitor events through real-time video.

“We are en route for significant expansion,” said Didi Horn, SkyX Founder and CEO. We have built not only a fantastic, game-changing product for the oil and gas industry, but have also built a fantastic team of experts ready to get it out there. The oil and gas sector currently relies heavily on road vehicles and manned aircraft (i.e helicopters) to detect any damage or threat. These methods are expensive and less efficient than the SkyX solution.”

SkyOne targets a major market, since pipeline leaks are a massive global concern. Statistics suggest that globally, the market spends $37bn a year just in monitoring. With one patent filed in North America and a couple more on the way, and more than 10,000,000 km of oil and gas pipelines worldwide, the market and growth potential is huge.

 

Himax to acquire Emza Visual Sense

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The semiconductor fabless manufacturer from Taiwan, Himax Technologies (Nasdaq: HIMX), plans to complete the acquisition of Emza Visual Sense within a year. Last week Himax has made a strategic investment in Israel, and bought in cash 45.1% equity ownership in Emza, with a one year option to acquire the remaining 54.9% of the company. The terms of the investment were not disclosed.

Emza Visual Sense develops extremely efficient visual sensors that include proprietary machine-vision algorithms and special architecture to deliver always-on visual sensing capabilities. “The strategic investment in Emza compliments our previously announced ultra low power CMOS image sensor product and solutions for ‘always-on’ smart camera,” said Jordan Wu, CEO of Himax.

Ultra-low power sensors

“The computer vision market demands highly efficient sensors, algorithms, camera and processor architectures capable of delivering extremely low power consumption, needed for TVs and smartphones, as well as AR/VR, IoT, and AI devices. Together with Emza, we can transform our AoS sensor from a simple ‘image capturing device’ to an ‘information analytics device’.”

Yoram Zylberberg, CEO of Emza, said that the partnership with Himax, provides Emza access to a unique technology of ultra low-power CMOS devices. “Achieving advanced computer vision at ultra low-power consumption requires tight integration between the silicon and algorithms.”

Emza from Kfar-saba, Israel, has developed a unique, patented ultra-lean architecture and algorithms for computer vision solutions run on extremely thin microprocessors such as ARM Cortex M4, ARM11, DSPs or embedded, inside the pixels of CMOS sensors. This technology power the WiseEye always-on visual IoT  sensor, co-developed with CEVA (NASDAQ: CEVA), together with Himax Imaging, a subsidiary of Himax Technologies.

The era of wise sensors

The WiseEye IoT sensor consists of Himax low power CMOS Imager Sensor, CEVA’s low power vision DSP technology and emza’s machine vision algorithms. The result is a powerful solution capable of detecting, tracking and recognizing its environment in an extremely efficient manner using a few milliwatts of power.

The sensor allows low-cost IoT systems to employ advanced always-on intelligence for applications such as virtual assistants, wearable devices, connected home sensors, residential security, protection of elderly, automotive, smart buildings systems and smart city infrastructure.

Argus Cyber took over a car critical systems via Bluetooth

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Argus Cyber Security experts took over a car through a Bluetooth connection. In a post uploaded on the company’s blog, it describe how its research group succeeded in remotely taking over safety-critical vehicle systems via a Bosch Drivelog Connector dongle installed in the vehicle. A vulnerability found in the authentication process between the dongle and the Drivelog Connect smartphone application, enabled Argus experts to uncover the security code and communicate with the dongle from a standard Bluetooth device, such as a smartphone or laptop.

Yaron Galula,  CTO of Argus

After gaining access to the communications channel, Argus researchers were able to duplicate the message command structure and inject malicious messages into the in-vehicle network. Effectively bypassing the secure message filter that was designed to allow only specific messages. It enabled the Argus research group to take control of a moving car and remotely stopping the engine.

Drivelog Connect is an online car manager service of the Bosch subsidiary, Mobility Media GmbH. This new service informs car drivers about the condition of their vehicle. For this purpose, a special connector called Drivelog Connector is plugged into the vehicle’s OBD2 diagnostic interface. This connector can then transmit via Bluetooth any important information regarding the vehicle condition to the Drivelog Connect app installed on the user’s smartphone.

Cryptography is not enough…

“The Bosch discovery demonstrates that solutions based on cryptography, even when designed by leaders in the industry, are not foolproof and that multi-layered defenses are required to effectively protect vehicles from cyber threats,” said Yaron Galula, Argus CTO and Co-Founder.

As soon as Argus found cyber security vulnerabilities in the Bosch Drivelog Connector dongle, Bosch was duly informed. “When Argus informed us about the security gaps, we took immediate action to verify and fix the issues,” said Thorsten Kuhles, head of the Bosch Product Security Incident Response Team (PSIRT).  “A patch that fixes the underlying weaknesses in the encryption protocol will be available shortly. This patch will prevent the kind of attack as described by Argus.”

Founded in 2013, Argus is headquartered in Tel-Aviv, Israel, with offices in Michigan, Silicon Valley, Stuttgart and Tokyo. It provides comprehensive suites protect connected cars and commercial vehicles against cyberattacks. The company’s costumers include car manufacturers, their Tier 1 suppliers, and aftermarket connectivity providers.

Emulating the car in the Lab

The hacking team explained how the attack was performed: “We downloaded the Drivelog Connect app, which connects to the dongle via Bluetooth and enables the driver to review vehicle health, track trip data and more. The Drivelog Connect app is available for both Android and iPhone. Due to the open nature of the Android OS, we focused on the Android version during our research.

“The first thing we had to do was get the Drivelog dongle and mobile app to work in a lab without actually being connected to a running car. Therefore, our first order of business was to recreate a car environment in order to fool the dongle into working outside an actual car. We observed the data the dongle required to function by recording and analyzing the CAN bus traffic of an actual car while the dongle was connected. Because the Drivelog Dongle supports a wide variety of car makers and models, we assumed it would only use ODBII PIDs – a small subset of standardized diagnostic messages widely supported by car OEMs.

The basic idea was simple: First, connect the dongle to a running car, identify the PID requests sent by the dongle and record the responses from the car; next, we needed to simulate a running vehicle in a lab – when the dongle sent its requests, we replayed the recorded responses from the car, which caused the dongle to behave normally. After reviewing all the PID messages sent over the CAN bus, we constructed a request-response dictionary that allowed us to emulate the normal in-vehicle messages of a car. With the dongle working in a lab environment, we then turned our attention to the Android application and after decompiling the Java binaries, we were able to start our review of the source code.”

For the complete technical details of  the remote attack on the Bosch Drivelog Connector Dongle, click Here.

Series of Executive Appointments in Mellanox

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Photo above from left to right: Mike Dubman, Albert Benzoni and Samuel Attali

Mellanox Technologies, Ltd. (NASDAQ: MLNX), announced today executive promotions of Samuel Attali, Albert Benzoni, Mike Dubman, Dazeng Feng, Tzahi Oved, and Asaf Wachtel to vice presidents and Roy Armoni and Eyal Frost to senior principal engineers. “I am pleased to announce the promotions of Samuel, Albert, Mike, Dazeng, Tzahi, Asaf, Roy, and Eyal,” said Eyal Waldman, President and CEO of Mellanox. “These employees represent the next generation of Mellanox leaders who have proven their abilities to drive our technology and business forward.”

Samuel Attali is Vice President, Hardware Adapters and Processors, managing hardware development for the Connect-X and Innova adapters, and the BlueField system-on-a- chip products. Mr. Attali holds a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Technion University in Israel.

Albert Benzoni is Vice President of Silicon Photonics Engineering, he is responsible for developing high volume manufacturing processes and transfer to production of Silicon Photonics interconnect product line. He has masters’ degrees in Electrical and Mechanical Engineering from Lehigh and the State University of New York respectively.

Mike Dubman is Vice President of Software, leading the high performance computing, AI and accelerators software groups. He is responsible for delivering world class networking performance to Mellanox’s customers. Mr. Dubman holds a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics from Ben Gurion University, Israel.

Dazeng Feng is Vice President, Silicon Photonics Technology, leading chip design and technology development for the advanced Silicon Photonics-based LinkX™ optical transceiver products. Dr. Feng holds a PhD in Physics from the Fudan University, China.

Tzahi Oved is Vice President of software architecture, responsible for managing the software architecture of Mellanox’s advanced adapter and system-on-a-chip products. Mr. Oved holds a Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in Electrical Engineering from the Tel Aviv University, Israel.

Asaf Wachtel is Vice President Business Development, responsible for growing the enterprise, financial services, and media and entertainment businesses. Mr. Wachtel holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Tel Aviv University, Israel, and a Masters in Business Administration from IDC, Herzliya.

Roy Armoni is a Senior Principal Engineer, responsible for formal verification; managing the software and technologies to ensure first pass success for Mellanox chip designs. He holds a PhD in Computer Science from the Hebrew University.

Eyal Frost is a Senior Principal Engineer, responsible for analog and package design as well as signal integrity for Mellanox’s most advanced chip products. He holds a Practical Engineering degree from Ort Afula College.

CEVA Appoints Ran Soffer as VP of Marketing

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The licensor of signal processing IP, CEVA (NASDAQ: CEVA), announced the appointment of Mr. Ran Soffer as vice president of marketing and corporate development for the company. A semiconductor industry veteran with more than 20 years of senior management positions at startups through to Fortune 500 corporations, Mr. Soffer brings vast experience to the marketing and corporate development roles at CEVA. Mr. Soffer will join the executive management team, under which he will be responsible for the company’s overall growth strategy, including M&A.

Mr. Soffer most recently served as the General Manager of the Microwave Business Unit at Broadcom, following its acquisition of Provigent in 2011, where he served as Vice President of Marketing and Product Management. Mr. Soffer also served as Director of Product Management for Metalink and in various engineering and leadership positions at Motorola, Redux and ECI. Mr. Soffer earned an M.B.A and an M.S. and B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the Israel Institute of Technology.

Gideon Wertheizer, CEO of CEVA, commented: “We warmly welcome Ran to CEVA’s executive team. His extensive industry experience and strategic vision will prove invaluable as we seek to leverage on our business success and customer base to expand our market reach and product portfolio.”

Mr. Soffer commented: “As someone who has worked successfully with CEVA as a customer, I am thrilled to join such an innovative technology company and become part of the leadership team. I have watched CEVA evolve into a leading, multi-faceted signal processing IP house and look forward to capitalizing on this to further expand and diversify CEVA’s business.”

Mellanox’s Silicon Photonics gains momentum

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Figure above: Silicon photonic Variable optical Attenuator with the cover removed

Mellanox Technologies, Ltd. (NASDAQ: MLNX), announced that it has shipped more than 200,000 VCSEL and silicon photonics transceiver modules for hyperscale Web 2.0, cloud, and enterprise 100Gb/s networks. “The 100Gb/s optical transceivers market has ramped very quickly and we have ramped our optical manufacturing capabilities with it, and are shipping multiple product families in high volume,” said Amir Prescher, senior vice president of business development at Mellanox.

“The 100Gb/s transceiver and AOC market grew dramatically in 2016 to about $1.15 billion with demand exceeding supply. The early adopter hyperscale and HPC spaces lead consumption,” remarked Dale Murray, Principal Analyst, Lightcounting Market Research. “Going forward, we see 100G quickly surpassing the very popular 40G and going on to have a very long life cycle.”

Backward compatibility

Recently, Mellanox announced that is has shipped over 100,000 Direct Attach Copper (DAC) cables for 100Gb/s networks. DAC are used to link servers and storage to Top-of-Rack switches; typically less than 3 meters in length. Transceivers and AOCs offer lengths up to 2km.

Last month Mellanox introduced a new line of 100Gb/s silicon photonics modules, such as 100Gb/s 1550nm transmitter, with flip-chip bonded DFB lasers that reach distance of 2km, Low-power 100Gb/s (4x25G) modulator driver IC, Low-power 100Gb/s (4x25G) trans-impedance amplifier IC and more.

Now the company is moving to the next level: During the Optical Fiber Conference (OFC), held in March 21-23, in Los Angeles, it introduced a new line of 200Gb/s silicon photonics and VCSEL-based transceivers in the same QSFP28 package as today’s 100Gb/s products. “Our hyperscale customers can double their bandwidth and scale to 200G while using their existing installed fiber and without changing to a new form factor,” said Amir Prescher.