A number of car companies announced February sales yesterday, most of which were affected by the Spring Festival, the epidemic and other factors, the data declined, Geely and Great Wall clearly stated that the shortage of Bosch ESP system chip supply as the main reason. For a time, the problem of chip supply has once again become the focus of attention in the industry, and the proposals of the delegates at the two sessions of this session have also put the issue of chip localization in front of us again. For China's auto industry, which strives to overtake through intelligent electric vehicle curves, the localization of vehicle regulation-level chips, especially vehicle-grade chips with large computing power, has become a problem that must be solved.
Wang Fengying, deputy to the National People's Congress and president of Great Wall Motors
When it comes to the lack of cores in the automotive industry, remember not to confuse automotive-grade chips with consumer electronics chips.
The digital chip responsible for computing power in the vehicle-level chip is particularly important, mainly distributed in the processor and controller system, the central control system, automatic driving and auxiliary system, the engine, etc. all need such chips, Mercedes-Benz has discontinued the V8 engine model after the epidemic began because of the shortage of such chips. The other two types of chips are power chips for power supplies and interfaces and analog chips for radar, airbags, tire pressure monitoring and other purposes, and the technical threshold is relatively lower.
The reason why the automotive grade chip has a very high threshold is because of the almost harsh qualification certification: -40 °C to 150 °C, the temperature difference range of up to 190 °C operating temperature range, need to meet the operating life of 15 to 20 years... These are all in front of the domestic chip players who have just started to build one high wall after another. Among them, the especially important central computing chip has extremely high requirements for technology, on the one hand, it is necessary to increase the computing power to meet higher-level computing requirements, and at the same time, it is necessary to reduce the power consumption under the premise of ensuring the computing power. The resulting problems such as the long research and development cycle, high design threshold, and large capital investment of automotive-grade chips have deterred a small number of domestic chip players in the field of automotive-grade chips, and still let Nvidia, Intel and other established foreign chip manufacturers dominate the market.
Lack of core, not just a light and fluttering word, the data is the most amazing.
After the epidemic began, when everyone talked about China's automobile production and sales, they must talk about the lack of cores. But how big is the gap? Few people say it clearly. In fact, the chips in the domestic automotive supply chain have been monopolized by international chip manufacturers. According to data provided by Roland Berger, in China's large market of 28 million units sold every year, China's automotive semiconductor output value accounts for less than 5% of the global output value, and the proportion of imported products for some key components is even as high as 90%. Correspondingly, in the top 20 list of global semiconductor manufacturers, Chinese companies occupy only one seat. Zheng Yun, global senior partner of Roland Berger, said that the global automotive semiconductor industry pattern is very stable, due to the high barriers formed by the supply chain and product verification cycle, it is difficult for new enterprises in this industry to form a scale in the short term, and the market will still be monopolized by the current leader for a period of time in the future.
Automotive grade chips have a very high technical threshold
Autonomous and controllable has become the consensus of the industry.
In October 2021, Black Sesame Intelligence, a domestic autonomous driving chip company, signed a strategic cooperation agreement with SAIC-GM-Wuling to closely cooperate in automotive-level autonomous driving computing chips and visual perception algorithms. Black Sesame Intelligence's second high-performance large-power car-level intelligent driving perception computing chip - Huashan No. 2 A1000 is in mass production, this chip with 58-116TOPS computing power, process process 16nm, in line with a number of automotive functional safety requirements is currently the only domestic chip that can support L2, L3 and above level of automatic driving, and is also the first domestic automatic driving large computing chip to be mass-produced.
Large computing power has become the consensus of the development direction of Chinese enterprise chips.
In addition to Wang Fengying and Chen Hong, Zeng Qinghong, chairman of GAC Group, also suggested at the two sessions that the government encourage and support chip companies to innovate independently, and promote the establishment of a standard system and identification test system for domestic vehicle-grade chips. Zeng Qinghong said that only the government and R & D institutions, enterprises work together to truly solve the chip bottleneck problem and promote industrial development.
At the same time that Great Wall, SAIC, and GAC have completed their strategic investment in Zhanxin Electronics, the Lingxin 01 chip of Zero-Run Automobile has also been successfully developed, Geely's first self-developed smart cockpit chip SE1000 will also begin mass production this year, and BAIC and Xiaomi have also completed their layout in the field of silicon carbide.
Low power consumption and large computing power have become the new standard for vehicle-grade chips
In such a big environment, chip companies have gradually begun to increase investment. Huawei HiSilicon chip in the field of vehicle-grade chips has five products, Xinchi Technology has also completed the high functional safety level of the vehicle's underlying domain control chip, in 2021 just increased capital and share expansion of Zhongke Cambrian also began to exert efforts in the direction of on-board intelligent chips, by Yijiatong Technology and Yunzhisheng jointly invested in the formation of Xinzhi Technology and Geely and its affiliated car companies have carried out close cooperation, has been with China FAW, Bosch, SAIC, Dongfeng Yuexiang, Zhongke Chuangda, Asia Pacific, Baolong, Sotorian, Nujie Technology, Black Sesame Intelligence, which has carried out a series of commercial cooperation in L2/3 ADAS and autonomous driving sensing system solutions, will also launch higher computing chips with higher computing power in 2022. Shan Jizhang, founder and CEO of Black Sesame Intelligence, said in an interview with Titanium Media during the two sessions: "The integrated circuit industry is a key link to support the sustainable development of China's science and technology, and the government work report further emphasizes the importance of scientific and technological innovation and core technology breakthroughs, which enhances the confidence of local integrated circuit enterprises." ”
Perhaps the efforts of all Chinese car companies and chip companies can use the proposal of Yin Tongyue, chairman of Chery Automobile, at the two sessions to give its meaning - "By strengthening the integration of industrial ecology, to break through the "card neck" technology of in-vehicle chips" "" technology.