Shenmu cuts camera power use to one-tenth with custom chips
Shenmu, led by Yang Zuoxing, specializes in low-power intelligent vision chips, achieving significant power consumption reductions for cameras, enabling wire-free operation. The company believes these cameras are crucial for providing real-time physical world data to large AI models and sees opportunities in inference computing power. Shenmu has developed a series of products based on its chips, including intelligent pan-tilt cameras and parking recorders, some powered by 1-watt solar panels.
Key Takeaways
- The first-generation Shenmu chip uses one-third of the industry average power and appears in Ideal AI glasses, BC4PRO+ pan-tilt cameras, PT4 battery pan-tilt cameras, and the V1 life recorder.
- The second-generation chip cuts power to one-tenth of the industry average and powers the DC1 intelligent parking recorder and BC7 solar integrated camera.
- Shenmu says the BC7 runs on a 1-watt solar panel for 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, without wiring.
- Yang Zuoxing estimated global security camera shipments at 300 million to 400 million per year today, rising to 10 billion by 2035 and 100 billion by 2045.
- Shenmu says its full-custom chip flow uses dynamic single latches, handwritten netlists, and manual layout with over 95% utilization.
Why It Matters
Shenmu is pushing camera hardware away from wired installation and toward low-power, wire-free deployment, with a second-generation chip that it says cuts power to one-tenth of the industry average. That matters because the company is tying camera economics to AI inference and physical-world data collection, while also showing how custom chip design can translate into productized devices like the DC1 parking recorder and BC7 solar camera. The next signal to watch is whether Shenmu can extend this power profile across CIS, PMU, Wi-Fi, and 4G, as it says the whole system must hit the same one-tenth target.
Read full article at eu.36kr.com