Jiwei Network report (wen/Zhang Yiqun) In less than 3 years, it has completed the highest level certification of tape-outs, car regulations and mass production goods, covering more than 70% of China's car factories, serving more than 250 customers, and obtaining more than 50 fixed points... As a start-up, riding on the rapid development of the automotive semiconductor market, Xinchi Technology has created the "Chinese speed" of automotive chip manufacturers.
This not only stems from the deep accumulation of 10-20 years of mass production experience, but also because of the unique "Xinchi customer success model", which fully reflects the local advantages of "agile design response, open R&D platform, opening up upstream and downstream ecology and comprehensive customer support". At the media communication meeting of Xinchi Technology held recently, Chen Shujie, chief brand officer of Xinchi Technology, summed up the success secret of Xinchi Technology.
Product full scene coverage
As early as 2018, Xinchi Technology has deeply laid out automotive chips, and has launched all-scenario products covering four major areas: intelligent cockpit, intelligent driving, safety control and intelligent gateway.
Among them, the X9 series of intelligent cockpit chips can realize the instrumentation of single-chip single products, to the central control navigation of single-chip single products, to the support of full-featured flagship cockpits with up to 10 high-definition displays, X9P and X9U can complete the highest performance benchmarking in the current cockpit market. Pin-to-Pin compatibility can be realized, and the compatibility of software and hardware can be completed through a single design, which helps customers save costs.
In addition, according to Xu Chao, vice president of Xinchi Technology, the X9 series chips have also achieved some intelligent integration, in addition to human-computer interaction, they can also realize the collaboration of people and vehicles, so that the car finally becomes an intelligent mobile space, and has achieved mass production in customer projects.
With the evolution of automobile intelligence, the concept of central gateway has been widely mentioned, by reducing the amount of wiring harness in the car, reducing the complexity of the bus in the car, improving the reliability of the entire car, and improving the efficiency of data interaction.
According to Xu Chao, at present, many mass production vehicles use gateways made of 3-4 processors, and the G9 series of the gateway chip products of XCHI Technology adopts a multi-core heterogeneous architecture, and a gateway chip integrates the functions of 3-4 processors.
"The most critical thing is that we are not using the CPU to do high-performance package conversion, but self-developed package processing engine IP, which has been recognized by customers and has achieved the world's first level." Xu Chao said.
In terms of automatic driving, ChipCom technology launched the V9 series of chips, based on CV + AI surround view plus front view, that is, the application of ADAS single chip, next year, Chip Chi Technology will launch 500-1000tops for L4, L5 level applications.
In terms of MCU car control chips, Chip Technology has two products, D-class and B-class, of which D-class products are mainly used in instruments, electronic rearview mirrors, head-up displays and other fields; B-class products are mainly used in T-Box, body control, air conditioning, lighting and other fields.
Development is in the right place at the right time
As a start-up that has just been established for three years, the development speed of Xinchi Technology is amazing.
In Q4 2020, Xinchi Technology mass-produced the first 16nm vehicle specification processor in China, comprehensively surpassing the same level of products of international competitors. In Q2 last year, Chipcom Technology released a full range of vehicle-grade processors, which also achieved the leading performance in the world's same level of products.
According to Chen Shujie, in March this year, Xinchi Technology will release a vehicle control MCU with ASIL-D level (the highest vehicle regulation safety level) and the highest performance in the world. In this year's Q4, Chipcom Will release a 200Tops hashrate car specification processor, and support an open platform and ecosystem.
"Now our designated projects have covered more than 70% of the country's car factories, serving more than 250 customers, including car factories, joint venture brands, traditional Chinese car brands, and new car manufacturing forces, in addition, basically the top tier1 has achieved coverage." The 50 fixed-point projects should be said to be the manufacturers that have obtained the most domestic cores at present. Chen Shujie said.
For the current development opportunities of Xinchi Technology, Chen Shujie used "time, location, and people" to describe.
First of all, China's automotive semiconductor market is growing faster than the whole world, in the process of lane changing overtaking, it is very active and active in exploring automotive intelligence, high-performance intelligent vehicle specification processors have become the core power, and the lack of cores has accelerated the window period of local excellent chip companies.
Second, in the chip research and development design, Chip Chi Technology has carried out a lot of localization design, which can provide an agile and open product development platform and have good compatibility. At the same time, Xinchi Technology has also created a complete ecosystem, with more than 200 ecological partners, from software to tool protocols, to ecological vision, to overall solutions.
Third, Xinchi Technology has the industry's top core team and founders. The two co-founders of Xinchi Technology have more than 20 years of experience in international large companies, and the Xinchi Technology team is the only team in China with experience in mass production of vehicle regulation processors, and the average experience of the entire R&D team is more than 12 years.
"Like the iron triangle of the global No.1 cockpit chip research and development today, from architecture, to software, to hardware, these TOP level R & D personnel are in the core Chi Technology. Senior experience ensures that every aspect of the chip from design to manufacturing has a good product delivery. Chen Shujie said.
Q2 Industry capacity will return to normal
In recent years, the lack of cores has become a common challenge in the semiconductor industry.
Xu Chao believes that the chip supply chain is long, and globalization will indeed make the exchange of science and technology better, but in fact, in the epidemic period, once face-to-face communication is considered to improve efficiency, once the logistics in the middle is considered, localization is indeed a solution. Supply chain security is particularly important in the face of tight capacity. At present, TSMC, the world's top car chip manufacturing leader, and Riyueguang, the packaging and testing giant, are important partnerships of Xinchi Technology.
In Xu Chao's view, it is expected that this year's Q2 will return to a normal state.
"But there will be a lack of cores in the future, but it is said that as the exchanges between OEMs and chip companies become more and more in-depth, this situation will become easier and easier to handle." Xu Chao said.
In the traditional model, the main engine factory almost does not need to deal with the chip company, mainly to Tier1 to select the type, which leads to the mainstream electronic system differentiation is small, the homogenization is serious, and the lack of core also makes the host manufacturers make changes.
One is to establish a department specializing in docking chips, strengthen communication, and track production capacity; the second is to design alternatives from the chip level, and the traditional generally begins to select solutions at the component stage.
Such changes are an important opportunity for ChipStras.
"Now many OEMs will let our chip manufacturers participate in their discussions in the early stage of model planning, and we will be closer to the entire development process of the OEMs." Why do you want to do this? Because they have changed from the previous model definition based on the function implementation of the main engine factory to the current model definition based on customer experience, user feelings. He needs chip companies to give him more advice to give him the flexibility to define its differentiation and define its competitive points. Xu Chao said. (Proofreading/Andrew)