Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

With the rapid development of intelligent vehicles, the penetration rate of intelligent vehicles in China has risen to 32.4% in the first half of 2022. It is estimated that by 2030, the intelligent driving of different levels of new cars in China will reach 70%. The intelligent car effectively drives the growth of the number of automotive chips. It is estimated that by 2030, the market size of China's automotive chips will reach 29 billion US dollars, the number will reach 1000-120 billion / year.

The market for smart car chips is becoming bigger than ever, and players at the poker table are changing places. In the past, the poker table was full of old players like Mobileye and Nvidia, but under the pressure of lack of core, China's automotive chip design has made rapid progress. With star enterprises like Horizon rushing to the stage, Journey 5 will be carried by BYD, Red Flag, ideal and Weilai's new brand. There are also companies like Black Sesame Intelligence, which just won the project designation of the first pure electric sedan and the first pure electric SUV of Dongfeng passenger car under Dongfeng Group on the 14th of last week.

Domestic chips are speeding up to get on the bus, and a new era of automotive chips has come. The industry expects that 2025 will become the key node of chip localization replacement. Either get in the car, or you don't have to get on the bus again.

Around this phenomenon, this paper tries to answer the following questions:

1. What are the twists and turns that domestic chips have experienced on board?

2. What is the biggest risk to promote the localization of car core at present?

3. How do domestic chips compete for the market with foreign manufacturers such as Nvidia?

1. The wind has changed. After dismantling a car, the research team of the China Electric vehicle Association of 100 and domestic institutions found that the composition of the car chip far exceeds that of any intelligent terminal. Automotive chips cover a wide range of product categories, including control, computing, power, communication, storage, power / analog, drive, sensing and security. Among them, IGBT is responsible for the power semiconductor of power conversion, and MCU is responsible for vehicle control. These two types of chips are the largest number of chips in fuel vehicles and electric cars. SoC big computer system-level chip, generally responsible for automotive intelligence-related functions. These are the autopilot chips, smart cockpit chips and cloud chips that car companies compete in the arms race.

Among the car specification-level chips, IGBT is one of the earliest breakthroughs made by local enterprises.

At the end of the 20th century, the most important players in the IGBT Colosseum were Germany and Japan, and Chinese players never had a name.

Until 2005, Shen Hua, who once worked in the semiconductor technology research and development department of Siemens (Infineon), focused on the blank situation of China's semiconductor industry and founded Starr Semiconductor.

Unlike Starr semiconductors, BYD and the CRRC era chose to acquire. In 2008, BYD acquired Ningbo Zhongwei Semiconductor Company for 170 million yuan. In the same year, CRRC acquired Dennix, a British company that mastered the key technology of IGBT, for about 100 million yuan.

A year later, BYD IGBT 1.0 was born, which made China achieve a breakthrough from zero to one in IGBT technology, and then BYD launched IGBT2.0 and IGBT2.5 one after another, realizing the preliminary attempt of self-produced IGBT chip.

Unlike BYD, the original intention of IGBT in the CRRC era was not to build cars, but to build high-speed rail. At that time, China used nearly 100000 IGBT every year, the amount of imported IGBT chips was as high as 1.2 billion yuan, and the product delivery cycle was so long that it could not meet the scale of China's high-speed rail construction.

So Ding Rongjun, then chairman of the CRRC Zhuzhou Research Institute, decisively decided to build an 8-inch IGBT production line. In May 2014, the world's second 8-inch IGBT chip production line was successfully completed and put into production.

After the establishment of the IGBT production line, the three companies successfully won the order of the main engine factory.

In 2015, BYD began to supply itself while supplying external commercial vehicles; in 2017, the CRRC era cut into the regulation-level IGBT and won Dongfeng, FAW, Changan and other car companies; Starr's semi-guided mainframe factory customers are the most widely distributed, including Chery, Jianghuai, Changan, SAIC, Guangzhou Automobile Honda, Jianghuai Volkswagen and other domestic plants, as well as Renault, GM and other overseas customers.

In 2019, the market share of BYD and Starr has reached 20% and 17%. In 2020, Starr semiconductors produced a total of more than 200000 new energy vehicles for automotive-grade IGBT modules, with a further 15% market share increase. According to the 2021 annual report, Starr semiconductors used in the main motor controller of the vehicle specification-level IGBT module continues to release volume, supporting a total of more than 600000 new energy vehicles, the market share continues to rise.

Compared with IGBT, the localization of vehicle gauge-level MCU was much later, and it was not until 2018 that BYD successfully launched the first generation 8-bit automotive specification-level MCU chip to achieve a zero breakthrough. A year later, BYD's first-generation 32-bit MCU chip was successfully installed on all of its series-wide models. In the same year, Xinwang introduced the regulation-level MCU to the automobile market. Realize the mass production of automobile front loading products, and release 32-bit automobile grade MCU. However, the global automotive MCU market is still dominated by overseas giants, with a market share of more than 95%.

In terms of SoC chips, the "new forces" in the field of automotive chips such as Horizon and Black Sesame have emerged as a new force, facing Nvidia, Qualcomm and other foreign traditional chip factories.

In June 2020, Horizon's first domestic car gauge-grade AI chip Cheng 2, carrying Changan UNI-T, went public, realizing the first mass production of China's car-grade AI chip. That year, the chip shipment exceeded 160,000. In October, Volkswagen announced 2.4 billion euros to invest in Horizon, and its CARIAD also formed a joint venture with Horizon. In addition, Horizon also cooperates with BYD, Chery, Great Wall, Jiangqi, ideal, Nezha, Lantu and other manufacturers.

The Huashan II A1000 chip of Black Sesame Intelligence has completed all vehicle specification level certifications. it is also the first mass-produced domestic chip platform that complies with vehicle regulations and supports parking integrated domain controller on a single chip. At present, Black Sesame has obtained mass production projects from 15 car companies.

It can be said that domestic automotive chips ushered in a better opportunity for development at present. Independent brand car companies have gradually begun to accept and actively embrace domestic chips, the wind began to change, some early layout of chip companies also began to enjoy the market dividend.

2. At present, according to the competition pattern of the global semiconductor market, giants such as Europe, the United States and Japan still occupy more than 95% of domestic automotive chips, and the autonomy rate of domestic products is generally low, generally less than 5%. China's automotive chips are highly dependent on imports, and these three problems need to be solved in order to truly realize the localization of car cores.

First of all, the car regulation is an important step in the localization of the chip. After this step, we can get closer and closer to the domestic replacement of high-end chips. Compared with industrial-grade and consumer-grade chips, automotive specification-level chips encounter higher-level challenges in research and development, manufacturing, compliance, mass production and other links.

The difficulty of the car gauge is that the use environment of the car is much harsher than that of consumer electronics. for example, the temperature control range of the consumer chip is between 0 ℃ and 125 ℃, while the temperature control range of the automobile chip is-40 ℃ ~ 175 ℃, and the vibration requirement is 50g. This particularity determines that the automotive chip needs three levels of verification: component verification, system verification and vehicle-level verification.

In addition, the supply cycle of the car gauge should ensure that the chip has a stable supply for ten years, and that there will be no problems with the chip within 15 years. These stringent conditions determine that automotive chips require a long testing and certification process. For example, the aging test of the chip takes thousands of hours to complete, which means that this test takes up to half a year or even a year. Car companies do not want to integrate their own intelligent driving solutions with more technologies and algorithms, because the reliability of the chip has been recalled. Therefore, automobile companies have a low degree of trust in domestic automotive chip products and dare not apply domestic chip products on a large scale for the time being.

Secondly, the domestic automotive chip industry chain is facing shortcomings. Shen Chengpeng, communication consultant of China Electric vehicle Association, believes that the biggest pain point of China's chip industry is that the supply chain has not been opened. Although great progress has been made in chip design tools, manufacturing and closed testing equipment, domestic enterprises are still frequently "choked" due to the backwardness of core technologies such as EDA and lithography machines.

In addition, similar to the domestic consumer electronics high-end chips, the domestic car core is also facing the plight of frequent pressure from foreign countries. In August, Nvidia said it had been asked by the US government to restrict the export of two cloud AI chips, the A100 and H100, to China. In October, the US Department of Commerce promulgated the newly revised Export Management regulations, which, in addition to more stringent restrictions on the export of chips and manufacturing equipment by US enterprises to China, for the first time include "US citizens, US permanent residents, US asylum residents, and persons located in the United States" who are involved in semiconductor development activities in China, which means that the United States will restrict all Chinese-Americans from being in touch with China's semiconductor industry. Che Bai think Tank believes that the US talent ban will significantly affect the normal operation of the domestic semiconductor industry chain in the short term, and will impose great restrictions on China's introduction of core semiconductor talents in the long run.

3. Break the game

After more than a hundred years of ups and downs in the automotive industry, the internal chip has never been more important than it is today, and when the wound begins to crack, it means that innovation is also under way. Moreover, in the long run, the lack of core is temporary, but the game and competition around automotive chips have existed for a long time, how can domestic car cores compete with international chip manufacturers? Based on the views of Zhang Yongwei, vice chairman and secretary-general of China Electric vehicle Association of 100 people, che Baizhi believes that there are four main points:

First, strengthening the technology of the core links of the whole industry chain to improve the technology of the China Electric vehicle Association of 100 people, Chen Qingtai, chairman of the China Electric vehicle Association, said that our country still faces a big problem of "sticking neck" in the core technology environment such as chips and software. we must speed up to enhance the ability of self-research of core technology and build a complete and mature supply chain ecology of the industrial chain. Coincidentally, Zhang Yongwei also said at the recent Global Intelligent Automobile Industry Summit (GIV2022): it is necessary to strengthen the technological upgrading of China's automotive chips in the core links of the whole industry chain, such as design, manufacturing, closed testing, tool chain, key materials, core equipment, and so on. Need to focus on key core technologies, such as lithography to 28nm and below manufacturing process; manufacturing process to below 14nm manufacturing process; keep up with the development of cutting-edge 3D packaging and 2.5D packaging technology.

Second, actively promote the integration of chip enterprises and cultivate leading enterprises there are many large and small chip enterprises across the country, but there are very few enterprises that really meet the vehicle regulation level. At the same time, all kinds of chips used by car companies can completely compress repetitive categories and merge the same type of production capacity, so as to avoid waste of resources. Therefore, at a certain stage of development, leading enterprises should be encouraged to solve the current "small and scattered" problems by means of mergers and acquisitions.

Third, car companies should give local chip enterprises more opportunities to "get on the bus". Whether domestic chips can be used in the new environment is a strategic choice for us to promote the transformation of the automobile industry in the new era. for automobile enterprises, the task and route in the path of chip localization is to give local chip enterprises more opportunities to "get on the bus". Pan Yu, assistant vice president of automotive supply chain development, said: as an automobile company, it first provides an application scenario, opens up the entire supply chain, embraces domestic semiconductor companies, and gives appropriate opportunities to provide risk and failure verification. In this way, it can not only help the chip to iterate in the application and improve in the iteration, but also help vehicle companies to build their own spare tires.

Fourth, the government should increase policy support and talent system construction. Aiming at chip design, chip production and certification, the government proposes to subsidize expenditure items such as EDA and IP, chip inspection and certification, so as to reduce the burden on chip enterprises. State-owned industrial funds should play an important guiding role and take the lead in investing in chip design, manufacturing, closed testing and equipment and materials enterprises, and guide market-oriented investment institutions to increase investment. Promote the "sticking neck" problems such as 28nm and below advanced process vehicle specification-level manufacturing processes, lithography machines, and measuring equipment into the country's major scientific and technological special targets; encourage the industrialization of research achievements in the chip field and strengthen the protection of intellectual property rights.

To a large extent, the competition in the semiconductor industry is the competition of the world's top scientific and technological talents, and all countries are facing a talent gap, especially in China. According to the forecast of China Electronic Information Industry Development Research Institute, the shortage of integrated circuit talents in China will reach 250000 in 2022. Miao Wei, deputy director of the Economic Committee of the CPPCC National Committee, pointed out that it is necessary to increase the training of relevant talents, and at the same time attract foreign students and overseas senior technical personnel to return through policies such as special talent subsidies and preferential settlement. First of all, attract executives and backbone of American semiconductor companies in China who are restricted by the United States. Take advantage of the opportunity that multinational corporations attach importance to China's automobile market, attract them to set up joint ventures, wholly-owned companies and automotive chip R & D and manufacturing bases in China through low-interest loans and tax concessions, and continue to promote the discipline construction of integrated circuits in domestic colleges and universities. improve the personnel training system.

4. in the end, if the lack of core will be a protracted war, localization is not a long period of spiritual practice. The reconstruction road of chip localization requires the omni-directional cooperation of all participants, around our common goal, to accelerate the large-scale application of domestic chips, only through the effective combination of industrial innovation and technological research and development. in order to compete with international teams, can we really create an innovation ecology of the automotive chip industry with Chinese characteristics.

Reference:

[1] Automotive gauge-level Chip Industry report (2022 Edition), Geshi Automotive Community

[2] "there is not much time left for domestic MCU to break through", far Zhuan Research Institute

[3] "the turnaround under the Core shortage: the" Battle "of Automotive chips made by domestic manufacturers

[4] "what are the opportunities and problems for domestic replacement of this global chip?", fruit shell hard science and technology

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: che Bai think Tank (ID:EV100_Plus). Author: Zhou Shuangjiang.

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