The body domain controller market dominates, can the domestic manufacturers that break into the "giant zone" break through?

The upgrade of automotive electronic and electrical architecture has become the key to China's transformation from an automobile power to an automobile power.

With the evolution of automotive electrical and electronic architecture from distributed architecture to centralized architecture, the traditional automotive supply chain system is facing a new round of reshaping, whether Chinese automotive companies can grasp the initiative of development, forming a complete ecological chain from hardware to basic software, from upper-level application to user data, the construction of a new generation of electrical and electronic architecture is an important part of it.

Since 2021, a number of independent brand OEMs, including Great Wall Motors, BYD, etc., have released a new generation of automotive electronic and electrical architecture and upgrade plans, and the centralized E/E architecture of the central computing platform + regional controller has become the next direction of automakers.

At the same time, more and more OEMs are beginning to integrate Ethernet in body control modules (BCMs) for the need for complex software solutions for managing and controlling automotive electronics to enable SOA deployments and achieve the goal of software-defined vehicles.

According to the data, the traditional body control module (BCM) is one of the most important modules in the car, mainly responsible for the integrated management and control of many discrete functions such as the car's windows, lights, and doors. At present, BCM is further integrating body functions such as PEPS (keyless entry and start-up), wiper, engine start, etc., and upgrading it to a body domain controller product.

In the past, the key technologies of domestic body controllers (BCM) have been dominated by international companies. The core component of the centralized EE architecture, the domain controller, is the key to seizing the next commanding heights of market share, if it is still dominated by international enterprises, China's intelligent networked vehicles will lose the right to speak in the future market.

Therefore, the domain controller market is the core position that China's intelligent networked vehicles must take to achieve curve overtaking.

At this stage, in the mainstream body architecture of the domestic and foreign markets, the body domain controller (BDC) and the Ethernet gateway (ETH GW) are still two independent modules, and there are still relatively few mature products that integrate two modules at the same time.

"Gaogong Intelligent Car" learned that the central electronic control module (CEM) launched by Noble Technology has innovatively integrated the software and hardware functions of the body domain controller (BDC) and the Gigabit Ethernet Gateway (ETH GW), which can greatly reduce the BOM cost and production cost of the mutually matched system in the development of the ECU, and effectively improve the interconnection of the body network.

It is reported that the central electronic control module (CEM) of Nobo Technology will be mass-produced in the second half of 2022. Next, NOBLE Technology will further integrate ADAS-related functions to form a "central computing unit" to control the functions of the whole vehicle, supporting hardware architectures based on central computing - regional control and SOA software architectures, laying the foundation for software-defined vehicles.

First, it is imperative for the body domain controller to be controlled autonomously

The traditional BCM function mainly includes the control of internal/external lights, wipers, windows, doors and other functions, and communicates with each small node through CAN/LIN to control the load driver and coordinate the activation of the automotive electronic unit.

However, with the increasing number of functions in the car, so many nodes need to be controlled, which will make the wiring harness design more complicated, the cost will increase, and the software logic control will also appear chaotic.

In recent years, more and more OEMs have adopted the design concept of "domain controller", and on the basis of the traditional body control module (BCM), the keyless start system, ripple anti-pinch, air conditioning control system, gateway and other functions have been integrated, thus upgrading to a body domain controller product.

For example, in the CCA architecture launched by Huawei, in addition to the two major domain controllers of intelligent cockpit and intelligent driving, all other body control functions are integrated into the body domain controller (VDC vehicle control platform), forming a central computing + regional gateway architecture.

According to the data, because the body domain controller involves vehicle control strategies such as door control, headlights, and rearview mirrors, the technical threshold is relatively high. Especially as automotive capabilities continue to increase, the number of input/output processors and channels will also increase, and the complexity of developing body control module software will also increase exponentially, and it will also face problems such as power consumption and information security.

Therefore, the body domain controller market has gathered international Tier1 giants such as Mainland China and Aptiv, and only a few domestic enterprises have been involved, and most of them have not yet achieved large-scale mass production.

Noble Technology believes that in the past century-long automobile development history, China's automobile industry has undergone an important evolution from scratch and from existence to excellence. With the advent of the era of intelligent vehicles and the transformation of automotive electronic and electrical architecture, Chinese automotive companies are expected to break through the siege.

Noble Technology is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Noble Automotive Systems Co., Ltd., and has achieved a leading layout in terms of body domain controller, cockpit domain controller, intelligent driving domain controller and so on.

For example, in the field of body domain controllers, the central electronic control module (CEM) developed by Noble Technology adopts Renesas' new generation of MCU products and switches provided by NXP, which is the first batch of highly integrated electronic control units in the industry to integrate functions such as body domain controllers, BCM, PEPS, gigabit Ethernet gateways, etc., and the hardware, structure, and software are all designed with a platform, which can adapt to the electronic and electrical network architecture that can be further upgraded in the future.

In addition, compared with the mainstream body domain controller products on the market, NorboTech's central electronic control module (CEM) is more cost-effective and can provide faster and more flexible localization services.

According to the data, the upgrade of automotive electronic and electrical architecture is mainly reflected in the three aspects of software architecture, hardware architecture and communication architecture. Among them, the software architecture has gradually achieved hierarchical decoupling, the hardware architecture has gradually developed from distributed to domain control/central integration, and the vehicle network backbone has developed from the CAN/LIN bus to the Ethernet direction.

Noble Technology believes that the most core basis for the transformation of the vehicle's electronic and electrical architecture is software, but the premise to achieve software-defined cars is "hardware first". In the future, the cockpit domain and the automatic driving domain will be further integrated, and the final in-vehicle area controller will be uniformly managed by the central computing platform, and suppliers with software and hardware full-stack technical capabilities of "hardware + underlying software + middleware + system integration" are expected to seize the right to speak in the automotive electronic and electrical architecture upgrade war.

Second, the rise of China's power

In recent years, under the background of software-defined automobiles, more and more OEMs have increased the layout of in-vehicle software, and the demand for complex software solutions for integration, management and control of automotive electronic equipment through a single gateway has been enhanced in automotive electronic control units, which has further decoupled automotive software and hardware and continued to decline in costs.

Noble Technology believes that as a system that realizes the humanization, comfort and safety control of body appliances, the integration of body control system (BCM) and Ethernet will be the trend of the times.

In order to better meet the development needs of software-defined vehicles and the evolution of vehicle electronic and electrical architecture, Noble Technology has formulated a detailed landing plan for the vehicle's electronic and electrical architecture around the software reform.

Among them, in the field of intelligent vehicle control, in order to further concentrate the vehicle control software to achieve efficient integrated management, high safety and reliability and faster demand response, Noble Technology has released the second generation of body domain controller product platform, the typical product is the central electronic control module (CEM), which integrates the relevant software and hardware of the Ethernet gateway, and truly realizes the development and separation of software and hardware.

The third-generation body domain controller product platform of Noble Technology corresponds to the automotive computer stage of the centralized electrical and electronic architecture, which not only supports the hardware architecture based on central computing - regional control, but also supports the SOA software architecture.

The industry generally believes that before the emergence of the central control computing unit, the vehicle control unit will be divided into automatic driving domain controllers, intelligent cockpit domain controllers, body domain controllers and chassis domain controllers.

As the center of automotive computing decisions, the implementation of domain controllers mainly relies on the organic combination of multi-level software and hardware such as master chips, software operating systems and middleware, and application algorithms. Nobo Technology believes that for emerging Tier1 enterprises, it is particularly important to complete the design and development of the middle layer and open up the industrial chain ecology.

At this stage, Nobo Technology mainly has four major product lines of intelligent cockpit, intelligent vehicle control, intelligent driving and intelligent networking, mainly focusing on the development of hardware and underlying software, and will provide a series of system-level solutions with domain controllers as the core in the future.

At the same time, Nobo Technology will also develop and produce more high-performance, highly integrated domain controller products based on the next generation of higher computing chip platforms, helping software-defined cars become a reality.

It is undeniable that although domain controllers have not yet achieved large-scale mass production in China, the successive appearance of major domain controllers including Huawei CCA architecture and NOBO Technology has represented the rise of Chinese power in the field of vehicle electronic and electrical architecture.

For example, Noble Technology, its advantages in the field of centralized electrical and electronic architecture have been very obvious.

On the one hand, Nobo Technology is not only the first batch of manufacturers in China to integrate the body domain controller with the Ethernet gateway, but also the first batch of 8155 cockpit domain controllers based on the Qualcomm Snapdragon automotive cockpit platform in China, and has won the fixed point of many projects of Great Wall Motors.

On the other hand, unlike the intelligent driving domain, the intelligent cockpit domain controller and the body domain controller are the integration and upgrade of the car's original functions. Gaogong Intelligent Automobile Research Institute believes that in the next 1-3 years, the intelligent cockpit domain controller and body domain controller market will take the lead in ushering in an explosive growth period.

Among them, for the body domain controller market, the monitoring data of the Gaogong Intelligent Automotive Research Institute shows that in 2021, the front loading of new passenger cars in the Chinese market will be equipped with body domain control (body control + gateway integration) with more than 500,000 vehicles (considering that some models are equipped with two controllers on the left and right of the body, the actual domain controller capacity is close to 1 million units), at the same time, Chinese suppliers such as Jingwei Hengrun, Neusoft, Nobo Technology, Desay SV and continental group, UMC, etc. are almost on the same starting line, and have the opportunity to break the traditional BCM 3. Monopoly pattern of foreign suppliers in the gateway market.

In this way, Nobo Technology, which chooses to take the lead in the layout of the two major sectors of intelligent cockpit domain controller and body domain controller, will be expected to usher in a differentiated breakthrough.