Tesla wants to supply cars with self-developed ai-chip next year

[ENTXawp]

Tesla wants to supply cars with self-developed ai-chip next year

 

before you read this article please note that it is from a Dutch tech-site. the entire article (translated by google) as well as link to the original article are at the below.

 

Quote

At the moment, Tesla is still using Nvidia technology in his cars, according to the site. According to Tesla-ceo Elon Musk, the new chips will have to process 2000 frames per second instead of the current 200. At the end of last year, Jim Keller at Tesla worked on the self-developed chips for artificial intelligence. He has since switched to Intel and Bannon has taken over his position within Tesla.

Jim Keller, the microarchitectural engineer who has been involved in a number of high-profile CPU & SoC projects over the years, including AMD’s K8 and Zen CPUs and Apple’s early A-series SoCs also worked for Tesla for a few years. After leaving Tesla he joined Intel but his work at Tesla seems to be revealing it self soon. Tesla announced during the presentation that it plans to provide cars with a self-developed ai-chip next year. We only have to wait a little longer to find out if Keller has worked on another kick-ass architecture.

 

Related articles

https://www.anandtech.com/show/12689/cpu-design-guru-jim-keller-joins-intel

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/20/tesla-building-an-ai-chip-for-its-cars-with-amd.html

https://electrek.co/2018/04/25/tesla-autopilot-jim-keller-leaving-chip/

 

link to the original Dutch article

https://tweakers.net/nieuws/141641/tesla-wil-volgend-jaar-autos-voorzien-van-zelfontwikkelde-ai-chip.html

 

Translated article

Tesla wants to supply cars with self-developed ai-chip next year
Tesla announced during the presentation of its quarterly results that it plans to provide cars with a self-developed ai-chip next year. The company also says that it plans to increase the production of Model 3 cars to 6,000 a week this month.

 

Pete Bannon, who is currently working on the Tesla chips, said during the publication of the quarterly figures that Tesla has now produced its own chip and that it has been placed in test vehicles, says Electrek. This upgrade, indicated by the term "hardware 3", must also replace existing computers in Tesla vehicles that currently have hardware 2 and 2.5.

 

At the moment, Tesla is still using Nvidia technology in his cars, according to the site. According to Tesla-ceo Elon Musk, the new chips will have to process 2000 frames per second instead of the current 200. At the end of last year, Jim Keller at Tesla worked on the self-developed chips for artificial intelligence. He has since switched to Intel and Bannon has taken over his position within Tesla.

 

Tesla repeated at the presentation of his quarterly results that in July the objective of 5000 Model 3 vehicles per week had been achieved. At the end of this month it wants to be on a week number of 6000, that's what makes it known. It expects to be able to achieve an objective of 10,000 per week by the end of the year. Tesla had to deal with production problems around the Model 3 for a long time, as a result of which the intended objectives were not met.

 

The company again suffered a quarterly loss. That amounted to around $ 718 million this time, compared to $ 336 million in the same quarter in 2017. Sales were up $ 4 billion from 2.7 billion a year earlier and 3.4 billion in the previous quarter. Tesla expects to make a profit in the last two quarters of this year and 'to become profitable for the first time in its history'. Recently, it was still undergoing a reorganization.

 

[Guest]

Can’t wait for my Athlon XP to power my car.

[GoodBytes]

Excellent news entry!

 

On topic: Passing 200 frame per second analyzed up to 2,000.... That is one heck of massive set of pipelines (die size), and the cost... ouch.

(Keep in mind that chips in cars needs to be fanless, and of course cost down, as cars are already expensive as they are without it. And I doubt Tesla will magically have the very rare and difficult to find expertise in this field (same as GPU) which AMD, Nvidia and Intel are desperately fighting for...)

 

 

[AnonymousGuy]

11 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

Excellent news entry!

 

On topic: Passing 200 frame per second analyzed up to 2,000.... That is one heck of massive set of pipelines (die size), and the cost... ouch.

(Keep in mind that chips in cars needs to be fanless, and of course cost down, as cars are already expensive as they are without it. And I doubt Tesla will magically have the very rare and difficult to find expertise in this field (same as GPU) which AMD, Nvidia and Intel are desperately fighting for...)

No need for fanless if you plumb in a heat exchanger to the battery coolant system.

 

(I have a fetish for heat exchangers).

[Guest]

25 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

Excellent news entry!

 

On topic: Passing 200 frame per second analyzed up to 2,000.... That is one heck of massive set of pipelines (die size), and the cost... ouch.

(Keep in mind that chips in cars needs to be fanless, and of course cost down, as cars are already expensive as they are without it. And I doubt Tesla will magically have the very rare and difficult to find expertise in this field (same as GPU) which AMD, Nvidia and Intel are desperately fighting for...)

 

 

Why does it need to be fanless? It’s not as if there are items in cars which don’t have fans or are cooled actively.

[Drak3]

So, Tesla wants "AI" on the same level as their cars? Most companies tend to try to improve products to try to win customers, but

 

[S w a t s o n]

Apple: Jim Keller
Tesla: Jim Keller
AMD: Jim Keller
Intel: Jim Keller

I've asked this before but I'll ask it again, how the fuck is one human so much better than everyone else that he's designing chips for everyone?

 

I half expect IBM or Nvidia to take him after Intel

[Beskamir]

26 minutes ago, Swatson said:

Apple: Jim Keller
Tesla: Jim Keller
AMD: Jim Keller
Intel: Jim Keller

I've asked this before but I'll ask it again, how the fuck is one human so much better than everyone else that he's designing chips for everyone?

 

I half expect IBM or Nvidia to take him after Intel

He's perceived as a mythical chip designer so regardless of whether or not it's actually true everyone wants him cause they either believe he's amazing or they want the PR that they've got him working on their stuff.

[S w a t s o n]

1 hour ago, ElfFriend said:

He's perceived as a mythical chip designer so regardless of whether or not it's actually true everyone wants him cause they either believe he's amazing or they want the PR that they've got him working on their stuff.

Yea but he delivers so he seems to be actually better, that's what surprises me

[AnonymousGuy]

1 hour ago, Swatson said:

Yea but he delivers so he seems to be actually better, that's what surprises me

 

He doesn't do any of the actual ground level work anymore.  His value is in his name, and to some extent his name gives him the power to sway decisions like "we should cancel this product because it makes no sense".   His current position at Intel is at a level where he has an assistant and every minute of every day is in meetings.  I also tinfoil believe he's probably trying to stack pension plans from several companies before retiring.

[S w a t s o n]

4 minutes ago, AnonymousGuy said:

 

He doesn't do any of the actual ground level work anymore.  His value is in his name, and to some extent his name gives him the power to sway decisions like "we should cancel this product because it makes no sense".   His current position at Intel is at a level where he has an assistant and every minute of every day is in meetings.  I also tinfoil believe he's probably also trying to stack pension plans from several companies before retiring.

I'm pretty sure he worked on the designs for at least zen and probably apple's chip based on the various information I've seen over the years

[Taf the Ghost]

2 hours ago, ElfFriend said:

He's perceived as a mythical chip designer so regardless of whether or not it's actually true everyone wants him cause they either believe he's amazing or they want the PR that they've got him working on their stuff.

 

1 hour ago, Swatson said:

Yea but he delivers so he seems to be actually better, that's what surprises me

It actually appears he just might be one of the best Technical Managers to ever being in the CPU space. Getting the most out of your Engineers is a rare talent.

[Taf the Ghost]

16 minutes ago, Swatson said:

I'm pretty sure he worked on the designs for at least zen and probably apple's chip based on the various information I've seen over the years

The CPUs & SoCs he's worked on has been pretty impressive, but his best knack is probably working on projects that'll actually come to market. Zen is technically Mark Papermaster's baby, but Keller came in to rebuild the engineering staff. Given he seems to stick around through all of the design work of a project, then move onto the next project at a different company, it's also a bit likely he's really good at meeting schedules. And he meets his schedules by pushing his engineers pretty hard. 

[Froody129]

Aren't Tesla going bankrupt next year?

[DeScruff]

On 8/2/2018 at 11:24 PM, ElfFriend said:

He's perceived as a mythical chip designer so regardless of whether or not it's actually true everyone wants him cause they either believe he's amazing or they want the PR that they've got him working on their stuff.

Imagine he was actually like Big Head from Silicon Valley, and companies just keep the myth going that he is THE best chip designer to save face.
(context: 'Big Head' was marketed by a company to be the brains behind some new cool tech, but in reality hes was just a regular guy, and all these projects he is apart of go over his head.)

(No insult to Jim Keller, just thought it be a funny situation)