Gaogong data | automotive gateway front-loading suppliers have a high concentration, and OFILM ranks first in the domestic list

As the central router of the vehicle, the automotive gateway can safely and reliably interconnect and transmit data within multiple different networks within the vehicle. Information is exchanged between functional domains (powertrain, chassis and safety, body control, infotainment, telematics, ADAS) of shared data through physical isolation and protocol conversion.

In the past, depending on the model, the gateway may be integrated in the combination instrument or power supply control unit, in recent years, the independent gateway control unit has become the mainstream of the market. At the same time, it has become a trend for gateways to integrate BCM, T-box, and upgrade to a central on-board server.

In addition, as a key component of the new E/E architecture, the design of the architecture is more optimized, and OEMs can improve the scalability of the vehicle topology, the security of the whole vehicle, and the security of the vehicle network data.

At the same time, the next-generation in-vehicle intelligent central gateway for intelligent networked vehicles supports 5G and Gigabit vehicle ethernet and integrates C-V2X functions, which further broadens the networking capabilities of heterogeneous networks of the whole vehicle, and further enhances the forwarding and processing capabilities of data based on high-performance multi-core processors, while meeting more application needs.

For example, with the launch of the Volkswagen ID series of pure electric vehicles, the body central server provided by Continental group announces that the traditional independent gateway is rapidly evolving in the direction of domain-centralized central gateway and central on-board server.

On December 26, 2021, on the basis of the previously launched front-loading ADAS and cockpit vehicle mass production databases, the Gaogong Intelligent Automobile Research Institute officially released the body electronic front-loading mass production database, and successively released the corresponding function carrying data and supplier shares.

According to the data, from January to November this year, the number of new car front-loading independent gateway control units in the Chinese market was 17.1338 million units, in terms of suppliers, Continental, Bosch, and Maxion Electronics occupied the top three in market share, and OFILM (Huadong Automobile and Electric, Nanjing Tianqing) ranked fourth (ranking first among domestic suppliers) as domestic suppliers.

Behind this, it shows that the market expansion of domestic suppliers of core components of smart cars is accelerating in recent years, and they have the ability to compete with foreign suppliers in the actual front-loading mass production share.

In 2016, Shanghai OFILM Intelligent Vehicle Association Technology Co., Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary of OFILM, acquired 70% of the equity of Huadong Automobile and Electric and 48% of the equity of Nanjing Tianqing (after the completion of the acquisition, the two companies became wholly-owned subsidiaries of OFILM Intelligent Vehicle Association), and accelerated its strategic layout in the field of automotive intelligence with the help of the original on-board camera and other businesses.

Today, OFILM's intelligent vehicle business benefits from the solid foundation of product technology in hardware and software, the early precipitation has begun to show results, the client project has been carried out smoothly, the order has been steadily released, and it has the ability to provide a complete set of solutions from optical modules, sensors, core components of the vehicle electronic architecture and software algorithms.

In addition, the market share of independent gateway control units is currently highly concentrated, with the combined share of the top ten suppliers exceeding 90%. Next, the new market opportunities for intelligent central gateways and central on-board servers will bring about a restructuring of the pattern.

For example, the ICAS1 (Central In-Vehicle Server) developed by Continental for Volkswagen will be installed in more than 20 ID series models in the next few years. "We are the first supplier to achieve this paradigm shift in the market."

At the same time, the level of functional safety will also be improved. A typical gateway is the ASIL-B level, but then the central gateway processor will be required to reach the ASIL-D level, especially when dealing with domain processing involving ADAS security controllers.

For example, Aptiv's SVA vehicle electronic architecture, in addition to the data processing computing power provided for high-level autonomous driving, additional gateway servers will be able to provide internal redundancy, thereby providing data error detection.

At the same time, in the future, the central gateway server will also serve as data processing redundancy for autonomous domain controllers, "unique network, performance and security features combined, ideal for next-generation ADAS domain controllers." Bernhard Augustin, director of autopilot ECU development at Audi, said.

In the next few years, the entire automotive gateway market will show a two-wire parallel development trend. Among them, the secure Ethernet gateway is based on the MCU design, which meets the basic needs of the vehicle gateway, has a great cost advantage, and can support the vehicle OTA.

At the same time, some models (especially the intelligent electric platform) will enable the gateway computing platform, suitable for domain controller architecture or regional control architecture, and the computing platform adopts heterogeneous SoC solutions for the whole vehicle SOA.

In addition, IT companies represented by China have proposed the concept of distributed gateways. Compared with today's centralized gateway architectures, subsequent sensors and actuators can be connected to several distributed gateways (VIUs) nearby, forming a ring network. For example, the typical representative is Tesla.

It is foreseeable that the entire automotive gateway market, whether it is upstream chip suppliers, downstream gateway component equipment manufacturers, or new entrants in the IT industry, are competing for new opportunities.

In April this year, Chip Technology and FAW Group R&D Institute announced the development of the "Longchi" central gateway platform based on the former G9X central gateway chip, which will cover Hongqi SUVs, smart minibuses and other models in the future.

This is the first domestic independent gateway mass production platform equipped with "China Core", which also breaks the history of foreign monopoly of traditional gateway main chips, and is also another new milestone after the breakthrough of in-vehicle 4G communication, infotainment and ADAS chips localization.