"Investor Network" Huang Yunxin
Edited by Wu Yue
The two sessions were successfully concluded, but the positive signals released by economic development are still spreading. For example, during the two sessions, the high-frequency hot word "vehicle-grade chip" in the suggestions of the representatives of the two sessions has aroused widespread concern.
Vehicle specification level refers to the specification standards applicable to automotive electronic components, vehicle specification chip is often referred to as automotive chip, and the shortage of vehicle grade chips in the past two years has been plaguing the automotive industry. The ancients had clouds, "although the reel is small, it can lift a thousand pounds." As an indispensable upstream industry for automobile manufacturing, automotive chips determine the iteration and development of the automotive industry.
The "Investor Network" found that the proposals of many npc deputies and the proposals of CPPCC members revolve around keywords such as "automobile chip shortage" and "domestic substitution".
The automotive industry is now a chip shortage
Wang Fengying, a deputy to the National People's Congress and president of Great Wall Motor, mentioned in his "Proposal on Promoting the Rapid Development of China's Automotive Grade Chip Industry", "In 2020, the outbreak of the new crown epidemic caused the world to stop work and production, and the economic development stagnated. During the epidemic, due to various factors, there was a shortage of chip supply, and all walks of life were violently affected, especially the automotive industry. ”
Coincidentally, Chen Hong, a deputy to the National People's Congress and chairman of SAIC Motor, also mentioned: "Since the outbreak of the epidemic, the automotive industry has continued to be affected by the lack of cores. With the accelerated development of intelligent networked vehicles in the future, the demand for automotive chips (especially large computing chip) will continue to grow rapidly. ”
Zeng Qinghong, deputy to the National People's Congress and chairman of GUANGZHOU AUTOMOBILE Group, said: "The current contradiction between the shortage of supply and the surge in demand for automotive chips has become very prominent, and the soaring price and market chaos are exacerbating the survival pressure of enterprises. ”
The lack of core is like the same sword of Damocles, hanging over the automotive industry, and both at home and abroad are facing the dilemma of automotive chip shortage. According to media reports, Hyundai Motor's St. Petersburg plant was originally planned to resume work after the Women's Day holiday, but due to the lack of cores, the resumption plan was forced to be shelved; while Volkswagen is stopping orders for several hybrid models, caused by chip supply problems and the conflict in Russia and Ukraine; the US electric vehicle company Rivian raised the price of two electric vehicles, saying that inflation problems and chip supply shortages caused the price increase.
The lack of core in automobiles has caused a series of problems that need to be solved urgently, such as limited production capacity in the industry and rising upstream and downstream prices. Before solving the problem, it is necessary to understand the causes of the "car chip shortage". In fact, the "car chip shortage" is the result of multiple factors superimposed.
The most intuitive factor is the COVID-19 pandemic. In recent years, many chip factories have been forced to stop production due to repeated epidemics. According to media reports, during the severe epidemic in Vietnam in 2021, a number of chip factories were shut down, while Malaysia experienced a national lockdown, and cars and chip factories stopped production for several months.
It is worth mentioning that since Russia and Ukraine are suppliers of chip manufacturing materials, many people in the industry believe that this year's black swan event "Russian-Ukrainian conflict" will also exacerbate the tight supply of chips.
In the view of semiconductor market research firm IC Insights, the real reason for the shortage is the surge in demand for automotive chips in 2021, not the inability of semiconductor suppliers to increase production capacity. Industry insiders told investor network that "new energy vehicles and smart cars are popular, and terminal consumer demand stimulates the upstream of the industry, making automotive chips have been given higher expectations and requirements in performance and output." In the 2022 automotive industry strategy report, Northeast Securities expressed optimism that the new energy vehicle market will continue to maintain high growth next year. Tianfeng Securities 2022 intelligent driving industry research report mentioned that "the policy to help the development of intelligent vehicles into the fast lane, high-end automatic driving is imminent".
It can be seen that it is the lack of supply, high demand, and the imbalance between supply and demand that has caused today's automotive chip shortage.
Promote domestic substitution
How to deal with the shortage of automotive chips? The deputies of the two sessions put forward the following suggestions from the policy perspective.
Chen Hong said in the proposal that she hopes to establish unified technical specifications and standards for vehicle-grade chips through policy guidance and multi-party collaboration, and establish a third-party testing and certification platform.
Zeng Qinghong suggested that it is necessary to ensure stable supply, sort out the supply and demand of chips in key areas, and establish an emergency reserve mechanism for chips and important raw materials. At the same time, it is necessary to stabilize the market, strengthen policy guidance, and accelerate the layout of the overall industrial chain of automotive chips.
Zhang Xinghai, deputy to the National People's Congress and founder of Xiaokang Co., Ltd., offered advice to set up a competent department for automotive chips from the level of national ministries and commissions to formulate top-level design and supporting measures for the development of the automotive chip industry.
It is worth noting that when many npc deputies discussed automotive chips, they mentioned "independent controllability" and "domestic substitution". Wang Fengying suggested that the industrial layout should be improved in the medium term to achieve independent control; Chen Hong mentioned accelerating the formation of domestic large computing chip research and development, manufacturing and application capabilities; Zhang Xinghai mentioned coordinating resources and overall management of the research and development, manufacturing and application of domestic automotive chips.
Dongguan Securities said in the special report on automotive chips in the electronics industry in January this year, "Compared with consumer electronics and industrial chips, automotive grade semiconductors have a higher industry threshold, and the current industry discourse power is dominated by European, American and Japanese enterprises, and there is a certain gap between domestic manufacturers and international leading enterprises in technology and scale, and the domestic replacement space is vast." ”
Only by promoting the process of domestic substitution can we effectively avoid the risk of trade war and achieve independent control. Only when domestic enterprises master advanced core technologies can they go to the forefront of the world in the ever-changing market.
Quality companies are just beginning to emerge
In the process of domestic substitution, a number of high-quality enterprises have also emerged in China, all over the field of automotive chips.
In the research report, according to the specific application field of semiconductors in smart cars, open source securities divides automotive chips into five categories: computing and control chips, memory chips, sensing chips, communication chips and energy supply chips.
MCU is a computing chip, also known as a microcontroller, generally only contains the CPU as a processor unit.
National Technology of Integrated Circuit Design Enterprises (300077. SZ) MCU products have been shipped in the fields of electric two-wheelers, scooters and balance bikes. On March 4, the secretary of the national technical board said in response to investors' questions, "In the field of automotive electronics, the company mainly cuts from the aftermarket, and imports and applies it in the automotive electronics aftermarket such as body control, automotive lighting, intelligent cockpit, and automotive power supply." At present, the sales proportion of the company's chip products in the field of automotive electronics is not high, and the automotive electronics field is one of the downstream areas where the company will strive to increase the proportion of products in the future. ”
Core Sea Technology (688595. SH) is an analog signal chain and MCU dual platform driven design enterprises, the company's first vehicle specification signal chain MCU through the AEC-Q100 certification, has begun to be introduced into the new product design of automotive front-loading enterprises. According to a recent report by Huaxin Securities, Core Sea Technology has laid out high-barrier and high-value-added vehicle-grade products to enhance its core competitiveness and is expected to improve the profitability center of the enterprise.
Both SoCs and MCUs are computing chips, but unlike MCU chips, SoCs contain more processor cells that can handle more complex events. CICC research reports that automotive chips are evolving from MCU chips to SoC chips.
Quanzhi Technology (300458. SZ) began to lay out intelligent in-vehicle chips in 2014, and the automotive grade series of SoC chips has been implemented on a large scale, which has been applied to former car installers such as Changan, SAIC, FAW and Xiaopeng 603893; SH) released the RK3588M, which is one of the most powerful automotive SoCs available.
In addition to the field of computing and control chips, there are also many high-quality targets in the other four major areas.
For example, 603501, which is engaged in the design of semiconductor products. SH), the most important product in its image sensor solutions is the CIS chip (a device that converts optical images into electronic signals). The company said in the 2021 performance pre-increase announcement that "with the growth of the market demand for image sensors in the automotive, security and other fields and the increase in the company's market share in related fields, the company's image sensor solution performance has achieved sustained growth.".
Integrated circuit design enterprise Beijing Junzheng (300223. SZ) completed its acquisition of Beijing Silicon Cheng in 2020, which has been deeply involved in the memory field for more than 30 years and can provide high-quality and high-reliability MEMORY chips such as DRAM, SRAM, and Flash to the automotive electronics field. Founder Securities researchers believe that Beijing Junzheng's automotive memory chip business is expected to fully benefit from the rapid growth of the terminal market.
With the blessing of policies, automotive chip companies have ushered in good development opportunities. In the face of the current situation of "lack of cores" and "huge domestic replacement space", mainland automotive chip companies are still shouldering the mission and rushing on the road. "Long winds and waves will sometimes hang directly on the clouds and sails to the sea." So, whether the car chip shortage will be effectively alleviated in the last three quarters of this year, investor network will continue to pay attention. (Produced by Thinking Finance)■