This is the first day of the New Year, and we should alsoSummarize the past day; Accompanied by a full screen“happy new year”In the sound of blessings, Aoweisi reports to you about usWork Summary for 2023》.

This is the first year of Aoweisi, because we have finally started our agreed upon career.

But this is also a difficult first year, not only because everything is difficult at the beginning, but also because in the post pandemic era, the domestic economy has never experienced a downturn, and today, with the semiconductor avalanche, we are facing obstacles and difficulties that startups have never experienced before. Mixed with a strong desire to survive, we don't want to fall at the starting line.

Compared to the future, perhaps the present is the best day for the economy, so we also have no chance to do it again. We boarded this ship and embarked on this path of no return, never considering a retreat; Even if the wind and rain go hand in hand, we can only persevere and walk a path that belongs to Aoweisi ourselves.

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Looking Back on 2023We have made many attempts, right or wrong, in public and private, just to be able to persevere through the first year of Aoweisi:

March 2022We rented an office in Nanshan Ruiyuan. Without investment, scale, or even the purchase of office desks and chairs, with our brothers heading south in place, we began to embark on this path of no return: two people, two computers, two unscrupulous programmers.

The beginning of everything is difficult, we have no chicken to lay eggs, and no one has even heard of Aoweisi. Success cannot be borrowed, but failure can be learned; The cost of trial and error is high, but this cannot be avoided. With 15 years of FPGA development experience per capita, we have startedAll possible and impossible attempts.

<1> FPGA image development board

1) Yilingsi FPGA Image Development Board

Due to its unique low power consumption and IP presence in the MIPI RX/TX field, Yilingsi has significant advantages in the imaging industry. At the same time, due to our birth (born for FPGA images), we attempted to design Trion 40nmThe series T35, as well as the titanium 16nm series Ti60 FPGA image development board, are specifically designed for MIPI acquisition and display, as well as camera development. We provide the Yilingsi FPGA development platform for customers, as shown below (currently the best-selling Yilingsi FPGA development board on Taobao):

Given our achievements and efforts, we successfully assisted in the FPGA design competition in November（Yilingsi; I also appreciate Yilingsi's recognition of us: I believe that reciprocity and benefits are mutual.

2) Purple light FPGA image development board

In the field of control, or in other words, non MIPI applications and non low-power consumption areas, the products of Ziguang Tongchuang actually have certain advantages; Moreover, with the largest scale and largest market share of domestically produced FPGAs, we also want to try to expand the application of domestically produced FPGAs. In view of this, with the support of original factory sales, we have designed a video image processing development board based on Logos2 100K FPGA (PG2L100H676), filling the gap in the FPGA development board solution of Ziguang Tongchuang in the image industry, as follows:

We want to help everyone implement FPGA image solutions as much as possible within a limited time, which is also the value of our Aoweisi existence. Therefore, it took several months and several versions to finally land a 100K FPGA image development board.

Unfortunately, the development board/materials are also ready, and the promotion article/official account is also ready. Despite the promotion of the original factory's sales, Unisplendor Commerce still delayed forwarding the article to boost the promotion on the grounds that it needs the approval of the supplier. In the end, the original factory did not buy our attention and instead switched to skip orders to support us“Small Eye FPGA”. We want to say that we have already moved on to another love, why step on two boats?

We, who have suffered ten thousand blows, can only regretfully withdraw and stop the research and development of more Purple Light FPGA development boards and the updating of information (poor inventory). Subsequently, many friends who purchased "Little Eyes FPGA" sought our support for the design of images and PCIE. We regret to inform them that we still have to go through the ups and downs.

In addition, due to the compatibility of Purple Light's PG2L100H676 P2P with Xilinx's XC7A100K FPGA, in order to avoid wasting three months of effort, we immediately launched the Xilinx version of the 100K FPGA image processing development board, and 100% ported the FPGA algorithm source code of "MATLAB and FPGA based Image Processing Tutorial", as follows:

2024 upcoming eventsISPThe relevant design tutorials and training will be based on this platform, shining and heating!

3) Sitewe CMOS module

Except for Sony and ONSE, the third sensor company should be consideredSiteweiAnd in the field of domestic image applications, Sitewe accounts for the vast majority of domestic market share. Therefore, we support domestic production, and we also hope to introduce sensors from Sitewe.When domestic FPGA is paired with domestic CMOS sensors, the taste and taste can be further enhanced. Thank you to STW's SC130GS and SC2210 sensors, which have driven the landing of some of our platforms and increased sales both online and offline.

The following are the CMOS sensors developed by Sitewe in 2023, including MIPI and DVP interfaces, as well as different target surface characteristics. Interested friends are welcome to consult and cooperate:

The complete MIPI Sensor solution provided by Aoweisi has been successfully delivered to multiple mass production customers. In 2024, Aoweisi will design a new SC235HS high-performance global 200W camera. Stay tuned.

<3> FPGA image projects

1) SLVS-EC3.0 camera based on Lattice NX100

As another important branch in addition to the MIPI standard, Sony has also been promoting the SLVS-EC3.0 interface on high-definition and high bandwidth sensors in recent years. Currently, Xilinx does not have an official IP for this interface. If we also need to consider the cost of FPGA, Lattice is the only official provider of SLVS-EC3.0 IP worldwide. For this, we spent half of the manpower and material resources in 2023 to design a prototype prototype of SLVS-EC3.0 based on IMX472 for collecting MIPI and sending CPU to Party A's father, and completed the delivery.

We spent half of our schedule grinding the EC3.0 IP for Lattice. Due to the fact that the IP itself is relatively new and has not yet undergone mass production testing, we have gone through 81 challenges. After helping the original factory fix several bugs, we were finally able to debug this solution and become the first company in China to implement a mature solution based on Lattice SLVS-EC3.0.

As of now, Aoweisi has successfully supported3 piecesCustomer SLVS-EC3.0 solution and continuously improving content beyond IP features. Effort is proportional to reward. Thank you to Lattice for their support and recognition. We welcome everyone to explore the SLVS-EC3.0 solution together.

Preview:AoweisiSelf developedSLVS-EC3.0 IP has also matured.

2) SC2210 real-time ISP camera based on Yilingsi Ti60

The father of Party A requested a nationwide production of USB3.0 cameras, so we adopted the FPGA of Elixir, the Sensor of Sitewe, and the T630 USB PHY of Fangcuwei. At that time, I wrote an article detailing this plan:Joining hands with domestic chips to jointly produce nationwide USB 3.0 cameras.

The initial implementation of the plan took 3 months, but the recovery from various tests took another 3 months. The highlights of the plan mainly include the following:

• National chip selection
  

• Self developed ISP solution

Thanks to the low-power and high-speed Yilingsi FPGA, our solution has finally been implemented. This plan was unveiled at the 2023 South China Electronics Exhibition, and its ISP effect was unanimously recognized compared to similar FPGA products. Of course, this is just the beginning. In the future, we will continue to optimize and strive to do better.

Preview:

In order to support a good domestic ecosystem and assist our compatriots in the development of USB3.0 cameras (FTDI or domestic T630 solutions), after careful consideration, we have decided to launch a fully open source solutionSimplification plan, includingThe source code of FPGA and the software program of PC upper computer.The list of open source files is as follows:

3) Accessing NVIDIA Jestson based on Yilingsi MIPI scheme

Visual cameras are key to machine intelligence/automation, and NVIDIA Jetson supports cameras from multiple partners, including cameras with USB, Ethernet, MIPI, and other interfaces. Jetson provides a complete Jetpack SDK for these cameras, enabling users to quickly connect to these cameras and implement corresponding designs. However, NVIDIA's development currently has two issues that need to be addressed:

• NVIDIA's SDK only supports partner cameras and does not support third-party camera access

• The ISP function of NVIDIA is not open, and only two companies nationwide have access.

So, users are unable to access cameras outside of the party, and they are also unable to perform ISP debugging. In order to solve this urgent problem, we spent 4 months trying and countless times wanting to give up. Finally, we achieved the design of the customer's requirements, as follows:

For the protection of system security, Jetson's kernel compilation was turned on at the factoryDriver Signature OptionsIf the newly developed driver signature certificate does not match, the driver ko file cannot be loaded. However, most users are unable to obtain the signature certificate from NVIDIA when compiling factory images, which cannot solve the ko signature problem. If you need to use a new sensor module, you will need toRecompiling the kernel, generating a full system image, and burning the system requires a significant amount of work.

Failure and success are just a step away. After countless struggles to give up, it was finally achieved and a complete ISP was implemented on FPGA, effectively reducing the overall pipeline latency and solving customer problems. We think this solution is still valuable because it effectively opens the access options of NVIDIA AGX/Jestson suite, so that official account are issued（FPGA simulation MIPI camera successfully integrated into NVIDIA AGX developer kit）On the second day, people from NVIDIA came to our door to discuss whether there was an opportunity to join the NVIDIA ecosystem, which will also be one of our efforts in 2024.

<3> FPGA image products

1) Backwater battle,Ink screen TCONresearch and development

Without any investment, we couldn't see where the other side was, but after persisting for a year, we finally achieved some success in the design of the ink screen TCON. At present, our ink screen TCON designed based on Guangzhou Aoyi has been integrated into the client's tablet solution; Meanwhile, more third-party customers are being connected.

We are not sure if this plan can be mass-produced in the short term, but we have solved the problem of domestic ink screen TCON and helped customers land it as soon as possible. We have made the greatest effort. I hope that domestic ink screens can stand out, and using ink screens canChanging our lives.

Spoiler:

We are about to launchRK based ink screen development kitUsers can use it as a normal display screen (MIPI interface) to drive the output, and Aoweisi will provide maximum support for customers and engineers to achieve mass production.

2) Continue to work hard and firmly establish FPGA imageDesign

On March 12, 2023, with the increase of accumulation and R&D investment, we had to double our manpower and office space to better support customer needs and our development. We will continue to shine and heat up in the following areas, hoping to help more colleagues and also implement our reasons for continuing:

• FPGA/Camera Development Board Promotion

• FPGA image scheme customization

• Research and development of ink screen TCON products

More Ideas, waiting for you to discuss