Toshiba Corporation will expand its line-up of image-recognition processors for automotive applications with the launch of the TMPV760 series. Sample shipments of the first device, TMPV7608XBG, will start in January 2015, with mass production scheduled for December 2016 onwards.

With TMPV7608XBG, Toshiba is supporting the realization of next-generation Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS). Support for standard ADAS features includes AEB (Autonomous Emergency Braking); TSR (Traffic Sign Recognition); LDW (Lane Departure Warning) and LKA (Lane Keeping Assist); HBA (High Beam Assistance); FCW (Forward Collision Warning); plus new applications that include TLR (Traffic Light Recognition) and AEB pedestrian (during both day and night), which will become part of the Euro NCAP testing program in 2018.

TMPV7608XBG integrates two new Enhanced CoHOG (Toshiba’s proprietary Co-occurrence Histograms of Oriented Gradients technology) accelerators that provide far higher accuracy image recognition at night by making use of luminance- and color-based image information. This enhancement significantly boosts recognition accuracy, especially at night and scenes with low luminance differences between objects and the background. In addition, its high-speed computation capability can shorten the recognition time of pedestrians and vehicles.

Connected to multiple, Full HD cameras, the processors analyzes color gradients in supplied images and achieves a night-time detection rate of pedestrians that matches the day-time recognition rate of the company’s current devices.

TMPV7608XBG also supports a Structure from Motion (SfM) accelerator that realizes 3D reconstruction using the input stream of a monocular camera, and that can detect motionless obstacles on a road surface that are not detected by conventional pattern recognition.

TMPV7608XBG uses the SfM in 3D reconstructions and estimations of the positions and sizes of obstacles not detected by conventional pattern recognition. It accelerates the overall detection speed by narrowing down candidates for further analysis during a pre-processing phase.

TMPV7608XBG has a Heterogeneous Multi-Core architecture that allows it to handle multiple applications simultaneously in real-time. It features 8 MPEs (Media Processing Engines) that perform double precision floating point arithmetic, and integrates 14 types of image processing accelerators for the first time.

Simultaneous recognition of up to eight images is realized, and the image processing capability is 10 times that of Toshiba’s previous image recognition processors.

ADAS applications are processed concurrently within a time window of 50 ms by the image recognition processor, achieving a relatively low power consumption, due to the Heterogeneous Multi-Core architecture’s operating frequency of up to 266.7MHz.

In parallel, Toshiba has also launched a system power management IC, TC9580FTG, for optimizing TMPV760 series power management?The TC9580FTG system power management IC employs a DC-DC converter for optimizing voltage and power current control of the TMPV760 series. The new IC, with its output stage especially designed for optimal power management of TMP7608XBG, contributes to set downsizing and achieving the low heat operation required for ADAS applications.

Sample shipments start from the end of this month, with mass production scheduled to start in November 2015.