Smart cars have developed rapidly. In the first half of 2022, the penetration rate of smart cars in China has risen to 32.4%. It is expected that by 2030, the intelligent driving rate of different levels of new cars in China will reach 70%; The number of automobile chips is effectively driven by automobile intelligence. It is estimated that the scale of China's automobile chip market will reach US $29 billion by 2030, and the number will reach 100-120 billion/year.
The market size of smart car chips has become unprecedented, and players on the card table are shifting positions. In the past, there were old players such as Mobileye and Nvidia on the card table, but under the pressure of lack of cores, China's auto chip design has made rapid progress. There is a star enterprise running to the front of the table like Horizon. Journey 5 is bound to carry the new brand of BYD, Red Flag, Ideal and Weilai; There are also enterprises such as Black Sesame Intelligent, which has just won the project fixed points for the first pure electric sedan and the first pure electric SUV of Dongfeng Group's Dongfeng passenger car on the 14th of last week.
The domestic chip is speeding up its launch, and a new era of automobile chip has arrived. The industry expects that 2025 will become a key node for chip localization replacement. Either get on the bus or you don't have to squeeze on the bus.
Focusing on this phenomenon, this paper tries to answer the following questions:
1. What twists and turns have domestic chips experienced in the car?
2. What is the biggest risk to promote the localization of car core?
3. How can domestic chips compete with foreign manufacturers such as NVIDIA for the market?
1. The wind has changed
The research team of the China Electric Car Association and domestic institutions dismantled a car and found that the composition of car chips was far more than any intelligent terminal. Automotive chips cover a wide range of product categories, including control, computing, power, communication, storage, power/simulation, drive, sensing, and security. Among them, IGBT is responsible for power semiconductor of power conversion, and MCU is responsible for vehicle control. These two types of chips are the largest number of chips on fuel vehicles and electric vehicles. SoC large computing system-level chip is generally responsible for functions related to automotive intelligence. Autopilot chips, smart cockpit chips and cloud chips that are competing in the arms race of automobile enterprises are all of this kind.
New energy vehicles call for "China Core"
IGBT is one of the first major categories of local enterprises to make breakthroughs among Shangche's standard chips.
At the end of the 20th century, the most influential players in IGBT arena were Germany and Japan, and Chinese players had no names.
Until 2005, Shen Hua, who had worked in the semiconductor technology R&D department of Siemens (Infineon), paid attention to the blank situation of China's semiconductor industry and founded the Star Semiconductor.
Unlike Starr, BYD and CRRC chose to acquire. In 2008, BYD acquired Ningbo Zhongwei Semiconductor Co., Ltd. for 170 million yuan. In the same year, CRRC Times acquired a British enterprise that mastered the key technology of IGBT - Dennis for about 100 million yuan.
One year later, BYD's IGBT 1.0 came out, making China achieve a breakthrough in IGBT technology from zero to one. Then BYD launched IGBT 2.0 and IGBT 2.5 successively, realizing the initial attempt to produce its own IGBT chips.
Unlike BYD, the original intention of the layout of IGBT in CRRC era is not to build cars, but to build high-speed rail. At that time, China used nearly 100000 IGBTs every year, and the amount of imported IGBT chips was up to 1.2 billion yuan. The product delivery cycle was extremely long, which could not meet the scale of China's high-speed rail construction.
So Ding Rongjun, then chairman of CRRC Zhuzhou Research Institute, 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 operation.
After the establishment of IGBT production line, these three companies have successfully won the list of main engine manufacturers.
In 2015, BYD began to supply itself and supply external commercial vehicles; In 2017, CRRC Era cut into the vehicle-level IGBT and won Dongfeng, FAW, Chang'an and other automobile enterprises; The customers of the main engine plants of Starr Semi-Guide are the most widely distributed, including Chery, Jianghuai, Chang'an, SAIC, GAC Honda, Jianghuai Volkswagen and other domestic vehicle plants, as well as overseas customers such as Renault and GM.
In 2019, the market share of BYD and STAR has reached 20% and 17%. In 2020, more than 200000 sets of new energy vehicles will be equipped with the vehicle-level IGBT modules produced by STAR Semi-Guide, and the market share will further increase to 15%. According to the 2021 annual report, the number of vehicle-level IGBT modules applied to the main motor controller of Starr semiconductors continued to increase, with a total supporting capacity of more than 600000 new energy vehicles, and the market share continued to rise.
Compared with IGBT, the localization of vehicle-gauge MCU was much later. It was not until BYD successfully launched the first generation of 8-bit vehicle-gauge MCU chip in 2018 that it achieved zero breakthrough. One year later, BYD's first generation of 32-bit vehicle-level MCU chip was successfully installed on its full range of vehicles. In the same year, Xinwang Micro introduced the vehicle-level MCU to the automobile market. It has achieved mass production of automobile front-mounted products and released 32-bit automobile grade MCU. However, the global auto MCU market is still dominated by overseas giants, with a market share of more than 95%.
In the field of SoC chips, the "new forces" in the field of automobile chips such as Horizon and Black Sesame have sprung up, and are just ahead of the traditional foreign chip manufacturers such as Nvidia and Qualcomm.
In June 2020, the Chang'an UNI-T carried by Horizon's first domestic vehicle-level AI chip Journey 2 came into the market, realizing the first mass production of China's vehicle-level AI chips, and the shipment of this chip in that year exceeded 160000 pieces. In October this year, Volkswagen announced 2.4 billion euros to invest in Horizon, and its CARIAD also established a joint venture with Horizon. In addition, Horizon has also cooperated with manufacturers such as BYD, Chery, Great Wall, Jiangqi, Ideal, Nezha, Landau, etc.
Black sesame intelligent Huashan No. 2 A1000 chip has completed all vehicle specification level certification, and it is also the first domestic chip platform that conforms to vehicle specification and supports one-chip parking integrated controller in mass production. At present, Black Sesame has obtained the mass production projects of 15 automobile enterprises.
It can be said that the domestic automotive chip has ushered in a better development opportunity at present. Auto-brand auto companies have gradually begun to accept and actively embrace domestic chips, and the wind has begun to change. Some chip companies with early layout have also begun to enjoy market dividends.
2. Three mountains
At present, in terms of the global semiconductor market competition pattern, giants such as Europe, the United States and Japan still account for more than 95% of the domestic auto chips. The independent rate of domestic products is generally low, which is less than 5% on the whole. China's auto chip import is highly dependent. To truly realize the localization of car chips, these three major problems need to be solved.
First of all, car regulation is an important step in the localization of chips. After this step, we can get closer and closer to the localization of high-end chips. Compared with industrial-grade and consumer-grade chips, vehicle-grade chips face higher challenges in R&D, manufacturing, compliance and mass production.
The difficulty of car regulation is that the use environment experienced by cars is much more severe than that of consumer electronics. For example, the temperature control range of consumer chips is between 0 ℃ and 125 ℃, while the temperature control range of car chips is between - 40 ℃ and 175 ℃, and the vibration requirement is 50G. This particularity determines that automotive chips need to undergo three levels of verification: component verification, system verification, and vehicle level verification.
In addition, the supply cycle of the vehicle specification should ensure that the chip has a stable supply for ten years, and that there will be no problems in the chip within fifteen years. These harsh conditions determine that automotive chips need a long testing and certification process. For example, the chip aging test needs thousands of hours to complete, which means that this test will take half a year or even a year. Car companies do not want to integrate more technologies and algorithms into their intelligent driving solutions, because the reliability of the chip is recalled. Therefore, auto companies have low confidence in domestically produced auto chip products and are temporarily afraid to apply domestic chip products on a large scale.
New energy vehicles call for "China Core"
Secondly, the whole industrial chain of domestic automobile chips faces a shortage. Shen Chengpeng, the communication consultant of the China Electric Car Association of 100 People, believes that the biggest pain point of China's chip industry is that the supply chain is not connected. Although great progress has been made in chip design tools and manufacturing, sealing and testing equipment, the backwardness of core technology links such as EDA and lithography still makes domestic enterprises frequently "stuck".
In addition, similar to the high-end chips of domestic consumer electronics, domestic car cores are also facing the dilemma of being frequently pressed by foreign countries. In August this year, Nvidia said that it was required by the US government to restrict the export of two cloud AI chips A100 and H100 to China. In October, the United States Department of Commerce issued the newly revised Export Administration Regulations, which, in addition to more strict restrictions on the export of chips and manufacturing equipment by American enterprises to China, also included for the first time "American citizens, permanent residents of the United States, asylum-seekers of the United States, and people in the United States" involved in semiconductor development activities in China in the scope of control, which means that the United States will restrict all Chinese Americans from being involved in the Chinese 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 greatly restrict China's introduction of core semiconductor talents in the long term.
3. Break the game
The automotive industry has experienced more than one hundred years of ups and downs. The internal chip has never been as important as today. When the wound begins to crack, it means that innovation is also in progress. Moreover, in the long run, the lack of core is temporary, but the game and competition around automobile chips have existed for a long time. How can domestic automobile chips compete with international chip manufacturers on the same stage? Based on the views of Zhang Yongwei, vice president and secretary-general of the China Electric Vehicle Hundred People Association, Chebai Think Tank believes that there are four main points:
First, strengthen the technological upgrading of the core links of the whole industrial chain
Chen Qingtai, chairman of the China Electric Vehicle Hundred People's Congress, said that China still faces a big "bottleneck" problem in the core technology environment such as chips and software. We must speed up the improvement of core technology self-research capability and build a complete and mature industrial chain supply chain ecosystem. Coincidentally, at the recent Global Smart Car Industry Summit (GIV2022), Zhang Yongwei also said that it is necessary to strengthen the technological upgrading of China's automobile chips in the core links of the whole industrial chain, such as design, manufacturing, sealing, tool chain, key materials, core equipment, and so on. Only by filling up the "short boards" of wooden barrels can we be free from being stuck. It is necessary to focus on the key core technologies, such as the lithography machine to the manufacturing process of 28nm and below; The manufacturing process is to tackle the manufacturing process below 14nm; 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 chip companies of all sizes in the country, but very few of them really meet the car specification. At the same time, all kinds of chips used by automobile enterprises can completely compress duplicate categories and merge the same type of capacity to avoid resource waste. Therefore, at a certain stage of development, head enterprises should be encouraged to solve the current "small and scattered" problem through mergers and acquisitions.
Third, auto companies should give more opportunities for local chip companies to "get on board"
Whether domestic chips can be used in the new environment is a strategic choice for us to promote the transformation of the auto industry in the new era. For auto companies, the task and route in the chip localization path is to give local chip companies more opportunities to "get on the car". Pan Yu, assistant vice president of Weilai Automobile Supply Chain Development, said: As an automobile enterprise, we should first provide an application scenario, open the entire supply chain and embrace domestic semiconductor enterprises; And give appropriate opportunities to provide risk and invalidity verification. In this way, it can not only help the chip iterate in application and improve in iteration, but also help the vehicle enterprises to build their own spare tire capacity.
Fourth, the government should strengthen policy support and talent system construction
For chip design, tapering and certification, it is suggested to subsidize EDA and IP, tapering and vehicle-level testing and certification and other expenditure items to reduce the burden of chip enterprises; State-owned industrial funds should play an important guiding role, take the lead in investing in chip design, manufacturing, testing and equipment and materials enterprises, and guide market-oriented investment institutions to increase investment; Promote the "stuck neck" problems such as advanced manufacturing process of 28nm and below, vehicle-level manufacturing process, lithography machine, measuring equipment, etc. to be included in the national major science and technology special tackling objectives; Encourage the industrialization of research achievements in the field of chips and strengthen the protection of intellectual property rights.
The competition in the semiconductor industry is, to a large extent, the competition for the world's top scientific and technological talents. All countries are facing a talent gap, especially in China. According to the prediction of the China Institute of Electronic Information Industry Development, the talent gap of integrated circuits in China will reach 250000 in 2022. Miao Wei, deputy director of the Economic Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), pointed out that it is necessary to increase the training of relevant talents, and at the same time attract the return of overseas students and overseas senior technical talents through special talent subsidies and preferential settlement policies, and first attract the senior management and backbone of those American semiconductor companies in China that are restricted by the United States; Take advantage of the opportunity that multinational companies value the Chinese auto market, and attract them to establish joint ventures, wholly owned companies and auto chip R&D and manufacturing bases in China through low-interest loans, tax incentives and other policies; Continue to promote the construction of integrated circuit discipline in domestic universities and improve the talent training system.
4. End
If it is said that the lack of core will be a protracted war, localization is not a long practice. The reconstruction of chip localization requires the all-round cooperation of all participants, and around our common goal, accelerate the large-scale application of domestic chips. Only through the effective combination of industrial innovation and technological research and development, can it be possible to compete with the international team, and truly create an innovative ecosystem of automotive chip industry with Chinese characteristics.