EXCLUSIVE: Cepton Launches Proprietary Chipset for Automotive Lidar Dubbed "Komodo" To Boost Point Cloud Quality And Reduce Costs

Cepton Inc CPTN released Komodo, its proprietary lidar point cloud processor Application-Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) chip. 

What Happened? Using the company’s ADAS lidar series production program, Komodo achieved production-ready status and is expected to begin shipping in Q2 2023. 

Developed in-house at Cepton’s headquarters in Silicon Valley, Komodo will be integrated into several models of Cepton lidars. 

Komodo is an integrated custom SoC intended to improve point cloud quality while replacing several merchant silicon devices to reduce cost dramatically. 

Why Does It Matter? “In the context of the U.S. CHIPS bill, we see the increasing importance of minimizing reliance on the semiconductor supply chain by using our own ASICs. Cepton will continue to drive its ASIC development and expand its leadership in automotive lidar at the chip level,” said Jun Pei, CEO & Co-founder at Cepton. 

As Cepton’s lidar products move towards large-scale deployment, having dedicated ASICs will help Cepton achieve the price points necessary for automotive OEMs to drive mass-market lidar adoption in future vehicles. Replacing the FPGA and merchant silicon devices, Komodo significantly increases the scalability of Cepton’s lidar solutions.

“The combination of Iguana and Komodo seamlessly transforms analog signals into a fully digitized 3D point cloud,” explains Edward Wu, Director of ASIC Engineering at Cepton. “And that’s how lidar converts photons into accurate 3D measurements and ultimately provides useful information such as the size, speed, moving direction, and distance of an object.”

Dr. Jun Pei adds, “Cepton’s expanded chipset further drives lidar adoption in consumer vehicles and is the result of several years of efforts to industrialize lidar for automotive series production.”

Price Action: CPTN shares closed lower by 0.46% at $0.41 on Tuesday.