Jiwei Network report This unprecedented wave of core shortage shows obvious structural characteristics, with the shortage of MCUs being the most serious. By February this year, the MCU delivery cycle had reached 35.7 weeks (more than 8 months).
The shortage of MCUs stems from the lack of 8-inch line capacity on the supply side, and on the demand side, it is due to the surge in the use of cars. As the process of electrification/intelligence of automobiles accelerates, electric motors replace fuel engines, and the application of vehicle controllers and BMS is also growing, prompting a rapid explosion in demand for automotive MCUs.
However, this is more from the perspective of the outside industry, to really understand what is happening in this industry, you may wish to listen to the MCU manufacturers for you one by one.
Marginalization of automotive MCUs? Non-existent!
The hottest concept in automotive electronics is the domain controller, which was pioneered by Tier1, led by Bosch. According to the functions of automotive electronic components, they divide the vehicle into several areas such as powertrain, vehicle safety, body electronics, intelligent cockpit and intelligent driving, and use the CPU/GPU (domain controller) with stronger processing power to centrally control each domain to replace the distributed electrical and electronic architecture.
There is a debate in the industry that the prevalence of domain controllers will lead to the marginalization of traditional ECUs, and automotive MCUs that are the core of ECUs will gradually be replaced.
MCU vendors firmly reject this doubt. Yan Goh, senior marketing manager in Microchip's automotive products division, said, "If you look closely at an electric vehicle, you will find that almost every module or function requires an MCU, and in the connection system, each end node of the cable in the car needs some kind of processing module that uses the MCU." ”
Yan Goh further noted that the electrical system within an electric vehicle covers a wide range of functions from high-voltage to low-voltage systems. The high voltage system is primarily responsible for the electrical control unit (ECU) of THE OBC, DC/DC, traction motor, HVAC inverter and BMS system. In these ECU examples, electronic components (especially MCUs and MOSFETs) are increasingly demanding in terms of processing power, safety, power efficiency, and connectivity.
Centralized low-voltage electrical systems, often referred to as centralized computing modules, are used to support vehicle control responsible for body applications, autonomous driving, and human-machine interfaces. Yan Goh believes that the trend toward centralized computing as the 'brain' inside the vehicle is only part of electrification, "The OEM's vision is to use centralized computing as the backbone, using high-speed Ethernet communication to establish the main connection, splitting vehicle control from existing domain control to a partition-based architecture." However, the new architecture will bring more opportunities to MCU vendors such as Microchip, because the entire partition architecture will have higher requirements for the MCU, ensuring that OEMs can achieve scalability and flexibility while reducing complexity. ”
Another consideration that can't leave the MCU is cost. "Now the cost of the in-car wiring harness has exceeded the general electronic components, if a large number of domain controllers are used to control the terminal node, a lot of wiring harnesses will be used, which will greatly increase the cost of the car." Dr. Huang Jipo, General Manager of Sai Teng Micro Company, stressed.
Hu Lixing, manager of the motor division of Lingdong Micro Company, believes that the MCU used in the car is just more, "like the atmosphere lights in the BMW, there is an LED lamp bead every 20 cm in the light strip, and each lamp bead is equipped with a 16-bit or 8-bit MCU to be responsible for dimming, and there are many such examples." ”
He believes there will be more sensors and actuators in electric vehicles, which will need to be controlled by MCUs. At the same time, whether it is vehicle-road collaboration or vehicle-road cloud collaboration, it is necessary to install many MCUs responsible for control and edge computing on the road. "Broadly speaking, this market has become bigger."
Automotive motors make new tracks for MCU
The biggest sign of the transformation of automobiles from mechanical to electric is the wide application of motors, which is also the space where MCUs can best exert their skills.
Yan Goh said: "As the automotive market shifts towards electrification and automation, we see great potential for motor control, which will be a key enabler in the automotive application sector. At the same time, the number of motors used per vehicle is also increasing, providing great growth potential for new MCU applications. ”
Hu Lixing attributed the opportunities brought to the MCU by the use of motors into three categories: "First, there are more and more actuators in the car, that is, various dynamic parts, including window lifting, seat adjustment, etc. The second is technical iteration, such as 80% of the motors used in window lifting or brush DC motors (BDC), and the general direction of the future must be brushless DC motors (BLDC). Compared with BDC, BLDC will have more requirements for algorithms or computing power. The third is functional safety, MCU is the design process to follow the design process in line with functional safety standards, so that the product upgrade. ”
Yan Goh also believes that many traditional body applications are shifting from inefficient 2-phase BDC motors to high-efficiency 3-phase BLDC or even PMSM motors. "This shift allows the use of control algorithms to reduce the audible noise of the motor, thereby improving the customer's perception, so a more powerful MCU is required."
Under the hood of the car, there are also new motor control opportunities. Yan Goh said: "Belt or engine-driven accessories will be replaced by motors, battery and inverter cooling requires several new pump applications. In addition, we are seeing a new trend of integrating the control of multiple motors and valves in systems such as cooling and thermal management into a single motor controller, which reduces multiple PCBs, reduces component costs, and reduces space requirements. ”
Yan Goh specifically pointed out that from the perspective of electric vehicle OEMs, the primary goal is to increase the range per charge or the speed of battery charging, followed by optimizing the driving experience. For these two simple goals, a large number of electronic components need to be run in the background, especially for the use of MCUs.
It is with a variety of motors used in automobiles that MCU has more room for development.
The three challenges of efficiency, integration and reliability
In a sense, the electrification of automobiles is the evolution of vehicle motor technology, and higher power density, low cost and high integration are all development directions.
Automotive MCUs also need to change according to the situation, Hu Lixing summarized the three major development trends of automotive MCUs: higher efficiency, higher integration and higher reliability.
"Greater efficiency is the goal of all electronic systems, and the mechatronics that prevails in automobiles means that the motor and controller are integrated together, the interference caused by the increase in wiring harnesses is reduced, and single-chip solutions are becoming popular, which requires a higher degree of integration." Hu Lixing explained.
It is understood that the traditional motor control link is MCU + pre-driver (Pre-Driver) + drive, and now there are solutions that have begun to integrate the pre-drive and the MCU together, and there are also solutions that integrate the pre-drive and the drive together, and in low-power applications such as plastic motors, there are also links fully integrated solutions. These highly integrated control solutions help reduce motor volume, enhance heat dissipation, and increase motor life and reliability.
Reliability is also the most important point for automotive MCUs to improve. Hu Lixing said: "Now the algorithm, software and hardware design of the motor must be in line with the pursuit of functional safety, and the automotive application emphasizes safety, which brings greater challenges to the reliability of the MCU." ”
In terms of its own architecture, automotive MCUs are also evolving. Huang Jipo told reporters that because motor control requires more algorithms, mcUs have been integrated into more DSP functions and more interfaces have also been added.
Manufacturers agree that MCUs will unleash more potential as various applications in the automotive pursue the ultimate in motor drive performance and explore innovative features.
"Qianjing" is beautiful Domestic manufacturers now have opportunities
Automotive MCUs are experiencing a rapid growth, especially in China. According to the forecast of relevant institutions, by 2026, the market demand for MCUs in the mainland automotive electronics industry is expected to reach about 5.6 billion yuan.
Yan Goh said Microchip already sees great growth potential in China's automotive MCU market, "The automotive industry as a whole is undergoing a huge transformation and we can see that traditional automotive OEMs are competing with many new EV brands." In China alone, we've seen an explosion in NEV passenger car shipments, which are now close to 20% of the market share. Even in traditional cars with internal combustion engines, we are seeing more and more adoption of electronics. Take a look at any of the new electric vehicles that have been introduced recently. From the moment the driver's hand touches the door handle, to the moment he/she sits in the driver's seat, even before the car starts, they experience a large number of electronic switches, large LCD displays, and multiple lighting options. These functions are all supported by electronic components, and any additional electronic control modules present an opportunity for MCU adoption. ”
However, domestic automotive MCUs are still in their infancy. Huang Jipo pointed out that in terms of body control, such as body control units, lighting control ECUs, air conditioning panels, automotive instrument control and other applications, domestic MCUs are used a lot. However, in terms of the most core drive motor control, it is basically the world of international manufacturers.
Huang Jipo believes that the biggest gap in this regard is the lack of experience. Compared with the accumulation of international manufacturers for decades, domestic manufacturers have only had the opportunity to enter the automotive industry in recent years.
Hu Lixing also holds the same view, "More is the gap in the iterative nature of the application program, reflecting the reliability of the program, not meeting the test standards and other deficiencies." ”
However, he believes that the progress of domestic car MCUs will be a gradual process, "first do a good job in the application of the car peripherals, with the continuous iteration of the product, the reliability continues to increase, and naturally it will enter the core field." ”
Hu Lixing also told Jiwei Network that in the process of the development of domestic car MCUs, the business cooperation model is also quietly undergoing some changes. "The traditional business model is that MCU manufacturers cooperate more with Tier-1, and OEMs only put forward a modular demand. However, the emerging car-making forces will 'jump' in on their own and directly put forward demand to chip factories. ”
This is also the new form of the current automotive supply chain, in order to achieve better software and hardware integration capabilities, car companies in the product definition link will also bypass Tier-1, directly participate in chip definition and design, and chip factories to jointly establish an ecosystem, upstream chip manufacturers improve their status, bargaining power becomes stronger.
This model may not be a good thing for Tier-1, but it is definitely more beneficial than harmful for MCU manufacturers, because it can directly touch the core needs of the depot and create the best conditions for rapid product iteration.