Shulou(Shulou.com)06/03 Report--

Recently, another important news has been released in the field of domestic new energy vehicles. BYD, which has been quietly laying out the semiconductor industry, won $1.9 billion in financing and said it would list at the right time. Chinese semiconductors have been heavily dependent on imports for a long time. As one of the largest automotive semiconductor giants in China, the listing of BYD Semiconductor financing is of great significance to the domestic automotive semiconductor industry.

BYD said in an announcement that its BYD Semiconductor Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "BYD Semiconductor") officially introduced strategic investors, led by Sequoia Capital, CICC Capital and CIC Innovation, and a number of domestic and foreign investment institutions such as Himalaya Capital participated in the subscription.

According to the current round of investors, BYD Semiconductor has a pre-investment valuation of 7.5 billion yuan, raised a total of 1.9 billion yuan, and acquired a total equity stake of 20.2126%, with a post-investment valuation of nearly 10 billion yuan. The financing is just a follow-up to the internal restructuring in mid-April.

This also means that the BYD empire has created a new territory in the field of semiconductor chips, especially automotive semiconductor chips (IGBT chips). Automotive semiconductors have broad prospects, and China is also the country with the strongest demand for semiconductors in the world. In the face of this huge market, all kinds of domestic semiconductor manufacturers are eager to try.

For a long time, China has been heavily dependent on imports of semiconductors. In the case of intensified trade frictions between China and the United States, only by holding the deadly "core" in their own hands can we feel at ease. With the help of internal and external multiple opportunities, BYD homeopathy launched BYD Semiconductor, it is the right time.

Chip: a New Cake in the supply chain of New Energy vehicles

BYD Semiconductor will focus on the design and manufacture of IGBT chips for mass production. And in this field, BYD also has a rich accumulation of technology.

IGBT chip is known as the "CPU" of electric vehicles, and the full name of IGBT is "insulated gate bipolar transistor". For the electric vehicle, it directly determines the torque and the maximum output power (and then affects the speed of the electric vehicle) and so on. It can not only control the conversion between DC and AC, but also control the frequency conversion of AC motor, which is one of the core elements of the whole "three electricity system".

Therefore, IGBT chip is indispensable for electric vehicles. Since 2018, the rapid development of new energy vehicles has brought new historical opportunities to IGBT chips and even the whole automotive semiconductor industry.

On December 10, 2019, the National passenger car Market Information Joint Association (hereinafter referred to as "passenger car Association") released China's passenger car production and sales data in November. Wholesale sales of new energy vehicles reached 136000 in November, up 19.1 per cent from the previous month and 69 per cent year-on-year, including 87 per cent year-on-year growth and 65 per cent year-on-year growth in pure electric vehicles. From January to November, 880000 new energy passenger vehicles were wholesale.

The rapid growth of new energy vehicles, driving the rapid growth of automotive semiconductors. IGBT accounts for 5% of the cost structure of new energy vehicles, second only to power batteries. Calculated at a cost of 150000 per bike, the value of IGBT is between 7500 and 15000 yuan.

Therefore, the market prospect of IGBT is broad. The agency estimates that the global IGBT market space will be close to 10 billion yuan in 2020, and the domestic new energy vehicle IGBT market space will be about 105 billion yuan by 2025.

With the huge market space, IGBT chip has become a new cake in the supply chain of new energy vehicles. At present, only two key domestic manufacturers, including BYD, have the core technology in this field. In addition to BYD, the other is the rail transit medium vehicle (high-speed rail).

For a long time, China's electric vehicle semiconductors need to rely on foreign imports, but with the increase of trade friction between China and the United States, external risks are also increasing, which has created external opportunities for BYD, which has long been painstakingly prepared.

External monopoly is being broken.

For many years, the core technology of IGBT has been occupied by external manufacturers such as Japan and Europe. In the ranking of global IGBT power semiconductors in 2017, almost all are foreign companies. Infineon, the boss, occupies 27.1% of the market share, Mitsubishi of Japan occupies 16.4% of the market share, and Fuji Motor of Japan ranks third. The top five companies occupy 67.5% of the market share, while there is still a lot of room for Chinese products to replace.

The trade war initiated by the United States has made this kind of semiconductor trade suffer a new impact. As the world's largest consumer and importer of semiconductors, it is conceivable that they have been hit in this field.

In order to break through the external obstruction, the state has increased the support for the semiconductor industry. China's semiconductor enterprises ushered in the policy spring breeze when relevant state ministries issued the Smart vehicle Innovation and Development Strategy in late February. This is also a timely rain for the domestic semiconductor industry.

Although the position of foreign semiconductor giants is still difficult to shake in the short term. But at present, a number of semiconductor enterprises in China have gradually grown up. BYD is one of the representative, with decades of applications in energy batteries, electric vehicles, on-board chips, BYD has grown into the largest IGBT specification-grade semiconductor manufacturer in China.

For a long time, however, some of BYD's chips have been supplied internally and rarely used in the external market. In recent years, BYD Semiconductor has not only achieved a new breakthrough in IGBT technology, but also made a significant improvement in the scale of mass production, so it is reasonable to use its excess capacity for external customers.

Taking advantage of the window of the rise of Chinese semiconductors to accelerate development, it is undoubtedly wise to win the market that the giants lack.

BYD IGBT rises abruptly based on its accumulated strength.

"at the end of this year, BYD's Ningbo IGBT plant will have a capacity of 50, 000 wafers per month, while by 2020, it will produce 100000 wafers a month, or 1.2 million wafers a year." Chen Gang, general manager of BYD's sixth division and solar energy division, said. BYD already has the conditions and advantages to shift from self-sufficiency to opening to the outside world.

It has been revealed that in 2019, BYD has already set aside part of its production capacity to supply to other new energy vehicle manufacturers.

In terms of production capacity, although BYD can not directly compete with European and American giants, but now, in addition to self-use, it is enough to meet the needs of some external customers.

Production capacity has always been the focus of the industry, industry insiders revealed that the current Infineon IGBT delivery cycle has reached 12 months, many domestic new energy vehicle companies' vehicle delivery has been affected. In terms of production capacity, BYD Semiconductor already has an alternative advantage.

Not bad in terms of technology, too. BYD's latest IGBT4.0 technology, announced in December 2018, is a major breakthrough in the domestic car regulation-level IGBT industry. "take the new generation of Tang as an example, other conditions remain the same, the use of BYD's IGBT4.0 is about 3% less than the current market mainstream IGBT, 100km power consumption." According to Chen Gang.

The technical product module increases the temperature life to more than 10 times that of the mainstream manufacturers in the market, and increases the current output capacity of the tram by 15% compared with the mainstream products in the market under the same operating conditions, supporting stronger automobile speed.

Finally, in the manufacturing process, there is also a breakthrough, the original volume after ten processes, reduced to 120um, only two hair diameter thickness.

At the same time as BYD announced the technology, it also announced the third generation semiconductor material SiC (silicon carbide) with better performance. It is reported that the performance of the new silicon-based SiC material will be better, and it will perform better in terms of current output capacity and loss. The IGBT of BYD Semiconductor can be used not only in the automotive field, but also in other industrial fields.

It took BYD 13 years to achieve today's good grades. Through 13 years of accumulated efforts, BYD already has the strength to compete with the international industrial giant Infineon. Now it is the right time to take advantage of the east wind of policy and borrow capital to fly alone.

Financing starts a new journey

BYD Semiconductor, formerly known as BYD Microelectronics, was the next division of the BYD Group. BYD, as a large integrated carmaker, has very limited financial support for its semiconductor division. after restructuring and integration, BYD Semiconductor, as an independent company, will be able to attract more capital from the society. better promote their own development, it is reasonable to accelerate financing.

Previously, BYD Microelectronics had no independent profitability as part of its internal supply chain. BYD Semiconductor, on the other hand, can open its business to all car manufacturers, making it easier for the company to be responsible for its own profits and losses.

Specifically, this is also out of the consideration of economies of scale. BYD Semiconductor needs capital for a long time, which will inevitably drag down the profit margin of BYD's parent company and affect the judgment of BYD in the capital market. Last year, for example, BYD's parent company's profits fell to 1.32%.

In addition, in the core area of BYD, facing the double attack of Tesla and Ningde era, there is a lot of pressure. Accelerating semiconductor financing will help it to get rid of the influence of its parent company and develop independently without interference.

At the same time, packaging the semiconductor business to operate independently will help alleviate the problem of cash flow supply of BYD batteries, and integrate all its related semiconductor businesses into BYD Semiconductor through a split, which is also conducive to resource integration.

The integrated BYD Semiconductor is not only for automobile manufacturers, but also can expand its business to consumer electronics, industry and many other fields, becoming a veritable semiconductor company, not just an automotive semiconductor company. By optimizing the capital structure and attracting more social investment, BYD Semiconductor can obviously help speed up this process.

The growth and maturity of a number of domestic enterprises, such as BYD Semiconductor, is undoubtedly a good thing for China, which is standing at the crossroads of smart things society. Of course, we must still realize rationally and objectively that there is still a gap between us and the advanced level of the world, and we still need to continue to work hard.

(official account of Liu Kuang / tr. by Phil Newell) ID:liukuang110

Welcome to subscribe "Shulou Technology Information " to get latest news, interesting things and hot topics in the IT industry, and controls the hottest and latest Internet news, technology news and IT industry trends.