Acrosser’s “AIV-C622V1” autonomous vehicle computer runs on 2x Intel 2nd Gen. Xeon Scalable CPUs with up to 28 cores, 48 PCI lanes, 2x GbE, 2x 10GbE, 12x USB, and 4x hot-swappable SSD bays.

Not so long ago, it was relatively easy to differentiate between a server and an embedded computer, but in the new world of edge computing, we’re increasingly scratching our heads and asking: Does this belong on LinuxGizmos? And with that, we give you Acrosser’s AIV-C622V1, a big honking autonomous vehicle computer with a pair of server-grade Intel 2nd Gen. Xeon scalable processors. Acrosser calls it “the most advanced autonomous vehicle server in the market.”

AIV-C622V1, front and back
(click images to enlarge)

A brief Youtube teaser video below proposes to compare the AIV-C622V1 directly with Neousys’ Coffee Lake based Nuvo-8208GC system, but then concludes without saying anything, leaving us wondering what sorts of things Acrosser might have to say about Neousys’ mother. It’s a bit of a mismatch since unlike the AIV-C622V1, the Nuvo-8208GC is not exclusively designed for autonomous cars. Other autonomous car computers include Nvidia’s Xavier-based systems such as the Drive PX Pegasus and Kontron’s 1st Gen Xeon Scalable 8160T based S2000 and Atom C3000 based EvoTRAC S1901.

Nuvo-8208GC

There’s no product page yet for the AIV-C622V1, but the announcement is full of details. Acrosser does not mention OS support, although it is likely that like earlier AIV-branded Acrosser in-vehicle PCs such as the 6th Gen Skylake based AIV-Q170V1FL, the system supports Linux.

Intel officially launched the 2nd Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors last month along with the Atom P5900 successor to its Atom C3000. However, our story focused only on the P5900 since aside from our Kontron S2000 story, we never before covered a product with Xeon Scalable chips.

Acrosser’s system uses a mid-range 8200 series Xeon Silver model with 6 to 28 cores, compared to up to 56 cores on the 9200 series. The 2nd Gen Xeon Scalable Silver 8200 series model on the AIV-C622V1 supports up to 48 PCI lanes.

On the AIV-C622V1, 8x of those 48 lanes are dedicated to uplink chores while the rest enable 3x PCIe x16 slots, and various LAN connections. The system provides 2x GbE and 2x 10GbE ports, plus a console port. The somewhat confusing announcement suggests the two 10GbE ports may not be immediately available.

The AIV-C622V1 provides 6x sockets that support up to 384GB of DDR4-2933, which Acrosser calls registered-DIMM server-class memory. It also supplies 4x hot-swappable 2.5-inch SATA SSD bays.

One of the SSDs “can be an external mobile SSD that connects to a storage server for upload data,” says Acrosser. This design “can prevent the potential risk of damaging the connector of SSD from repetitive plugging in and out and ruin the valuable data in the SSD.” Autonomous car developers can remove an SSD full of raw test data and replace it with a fresh SSD for the next test drive, says the company.

AIV-C622V1 side view and simplified block diagram
(click images to enlarge)

The AIV-C622V1 is further equipped with 4x USB 3.1 Gen2 (10Gbps) and 8x USB 3.1 Gen1 (5Gbps) ports. If we’re interpreting the press release correctly, it may be possible to add four more USB 3.1 Gen2 ports by adding a PCI switch. The photos also show 4x COM ports, single GPIO and OBD II ports, and 3x audio I/O jacks.

The system ships with IPMI OOB Management for In-Vehicle Server software for remote server management via 4G. You can set up a laptop in the test vehicle that mediates the 4G communications, thereby enabling full control of a self-driving car via a smartphone app. Hopefully there are safeguards that could prohibit you from accidentally butt-dialing a high-speed autonomous joyride.

AIV-C622V1 teaser video

 
Further information

No pricing or availability information was provided for the AIV-C622V1. More information may be found in Acrosser’s announcement.