Domestic manufacturers have increased the battery management chip, who can take the lead in overcoming the difficulty of vehicle-grade BMS chips?

As we all know, due to the advantages of green environmental protection, long cycle life, high energy density and high working voltage, since the early 1990s, lithium batteries have officially entered the consumer electronics market such as mobile phones, tablets, notebook computers for commercial application, and have been widely praised by the market, and have gradually become the preferred battery for consumer electronics products, power tools products, smart home products, smart travel products and new energy vehicles.

In order to ensure the safety and stability of the battery, the battery management chip has gradually become an indispensable key component in the fields of consumer electronics, industrial control and new energy vehicles.

It is worth noting that in the field of consumer electronics and industrial control, there have been a lot of domestic brand battery management chips on the market, but in the field of power batteries applied to new energy vehicles, BMS (Battery Management System' English abbreviation, that is, battery management system) chips still rely on imported chips, and there are few domestic chips.

TI battery management chips are seriously out of stock, and local manufacturers are blooming

It is understood that the batteries used in consumer electronics such as mobile phones, tablets, and wearable devices are usually single-string battery packs, with only 1 to 2 cells. Batteries used in products such as notebook computers, power tools, vacuum cleaners, electric bicycles and smart homes are usually multi-string battery packs, which are composed of multiple cells in series and parallel, but less than in the field of power batteries and energy storage batteries.

For a long time, the above areas are the main application market for battery management chips, but industry insiders pointed out that the technical threshold for entering the field of battery management chips is very high, because it involves product safety, it needs long-term deep ploughing, initially the field was occupied by TI, MAXIM and other strong manufacturers, and the follow-up Bump Technology, Silicon Jie, Zhongying Electronics and so on gradually entered the field and occupied a place.

It is worth noting that TI, as the mainstream supplier of the battery management chip market, its products have fallen into a serious state of shortage of goods and price increases.

According to industry insiders, TI's battery management chip is a BQ series chip, and the market gap has been very large since 2020, and the delivery date of product orders has reached 2023.

In this case, the field of small or small and medium-sized battery power management systems has emerged, including Silicon Jie, Shengbang Shares, Zhongying Electronics, Rixin Micro, Xidi Micro, JieHuate, Sai Wei, Huatai Semiconductor and many other battery management chip manufacturers.

Jiwei Network learned from the industry that although the current overall battery management chip market is still dominated by imported chips such as TI, ADI (acquisition of MAXIM), and Bump Technology, domestic chip manufacturers have gradually completed domestic substitution in the mainstream mobile phone market and occupied a dominant position in the emerging consumer electronics market such as TWS headphones.

In the notebook computer, electric bicycle, power tool, sweeping robot and small energy storage market, domestic chip manufacturers are also stepping up verification tests, and are in the growth period of domestic substitution.

According to a domestic chip manufacturer, at this stage, domestic terminal manufacturers, lithium battery manufacturers have a strong demand for domestic substitution of chips, we will launch its exclusive customized chips for head customers, is still in the product volume stage, the market demand is very large.

Vehicle grade BMS chips rely on imports, ASIL-D class certification or become a roadblock

With the rapid increase in the output of new energy vehicles, as the core component of new energy vehicles, the demand for power batteries has also continued to grow, and has become the leading force in the growth of the lithium battery industry.

In general, the power battery of electric vehicles needs to be composed of thousands of cells, due to the production process error of the cell, the difference in the use of environmental differences and other issues, even if the same batch of two cells produced, its performance can not be completely consistent, and in the process of use, the inconsistency will gradually expand, there may be overcharge, overdischarge and local overheating and other dangers, seriously affecting the service life and safety of the battery pack, which requires BMS to manage the battery.

However, as one of the core raw materials of power batteries, BMS chips still need to rely on imports.

Zeng Yuqun, chairman of the Ningde era, said in a recent research activity that the Ningde era did not directly involve the technology, materials or equipment of the United States in the battery production process, and now the only one that relies on the United States is the chip in the BMS, but this process is not high, 28nm is enough, and the current domestic technology is already available.

Industry insiders pointed out that BMS chips mainly include AFE, MCU, ADC, digital isolators, etc., and the suppliers that can provide complete solutions for vehicle-grade BMS chips are mainly ADI (AFE products mainly from the acquisition of MAXIM, Linear product lines), TI, Infineon, NXP, Renesas (AFE products mainly from the acquisition of Intersil product lines), ST and ON Andromed.

Among them, the BMS AFE chip (analog front-end chip) is responsible for collecting the battery voltage and converting it to a digital value through an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) and feeding it into the MCU to calculate the state of charge.

In terms of vehicle-grade MCUs, according to the incomplete statistics of the micro-grid, in recent years, domestic manufacturers including Jiefa Technology, Quanzhi Technology, Gigabit Innovation, Chipways, Sai Teng Micro, Xiaohua Semiconductor, Chipways, Core Sea Technology, Yuntu Semiconductor, Andrwang Microelectronics have successively passed the automotive-level AEC-Q100 certification.

In terms of BMS AFE chips, the chip has the highest technical difficulty and the highest added value, and there are fewer manufacturers involved in the product in China. From the public information, BYD Semiconductor has launched a car-grade AFE chip that meets the AEC-Q100 standard; Chipways' vehicle-grade BMS AFE (meets ASIL-C level) chip has also been successfully mass-produced.

In addition, Silicon Jie already has BMS AFE chip products, but mainly used in the industrial field, Core Sea Technology, Saiwei, Huatai Semiconductor has also said that it will develop multi-section BMS chips.

It is worth noting that as one of the core control systems of new energy vehicles, BMS needs to support the most stringent functional safety scenarios in the automotive industry. "At present, automotive OEMs have proposed that the functional safety of BMS needs to reach ASIL-D level, which leads to the need for BMS chips to design redundant functions to ensure failure mode coverage and further increase the difficulty of chip design."

Industry insiders pointed out that the vehicle specification grade BMS AFE chip products alone will reach 1.5 to 2 years in the verification cycle, from product definition to molding at least 4 years, for the harsh automotive application environment, in addition to the reliability needs to meet the AEC Q100 Grade1 quality standards, ISO 26262 automotive safety integrity level ASIL-D level certification, or will become a restriction on domestic chip manufacturers to force BMS chips in the way.

(Proofreading/New)