Core Intelligent Driving -- A collection of the views of famous experts in production, education, research and enterprises, a comprehensive analysis of THE opportunities and challenges of AI chips, third-generation semiconductors and other opportunities and challenges in the era of "great deformation" of automobiles!
Set micro network news, following the mobile phone, auto companies have also accelerated the process of self-developed chips, as of now, there have been Tesla, zero-run cars, BYD and other OEMs down to the core, the well-known analysis agency Gartner even asserted that by 2025, half of the world's top 10 car brands will participate in the core.
However, the development of chips requires a long-term accumulation process, in the context of lack of cores, car companies to build cores is obviously not to solve short-term production problems, but the layout of the long-term, and thus triggered the "control of the soul" statement. So will the core become the best way for the main engine factory to grasp the initiative, and how to build the core? What shortcomings do local enterprises need to make up for from making cores?
High-computing chip has become the first choice for "core making" of the main engine factory
The global shortage of automotive chips is still restricting the increase in automobile production, production cuts, production suspensions are still frequent, BYD Group senior vice president He Zhiqi pointed out in a speech a few days ago, if China's auto industry suffers from extreme chip supply cuts similar to Russia, "only BYD is the only one that does not stop production in China, and the other (car companies) all stop production because there is no semiconductor support." ”
He Zhiqi also pointed out that solving the supply capacity of local automotive chips is a problem to be solved by BYD and the domestic new energy automobile industry. In this context, a number of domestic OEMs have accelerated the chip research and development process.
According to incomplete statistics, there are local automobile groups such as Great Wall, SAIC, Dongfeng, Geely, FAW, BAIC and BYD participating in core manufacturing. Among the new forces of car manufacturing, Xiaopeng, Zero Run, Ideal, Weilai, Xiaomi, etc. also have layouts. Among the international manufacturers, Tesla, Toyota, Honda, Ford, General Motors, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen and other OEMs have also laid out the chip industry chain one by one.
Dr. Wang Kai, Director and CEO of Core Engine Technology, believes that "the shortage of automotive chips has broken the balance of the global semiconductor industry chain, and OEMs are becoming more aware of the importance of mastering core technologies, paying more attention to the diversity of supply chains, and ensuring supply security." Yu Kai, founder and chief scientist of Horizon, a new force of "building "core", recently expressed his support for the self-developed chips of car companies.
However, there are many kinds of automotive chips, including digital chips represented by MCUs and SoCs, analog chips represented by power chips, sensor chips, and RF chips, power chips represented by IGBTs, SiC MOS discrete devices, etc. According to different vehicle levels, the demand for chips also ranges from dozens to 100 kinds, and the demand for so many chips, main engine factories with automobile research and development as the main business, can not be laid out one by one, and automotive chips have high reliability requirements. The long R&D cycle and large investment threshold are very big tests for the main engine factory.
In this regard, Dr. Wang Kai believes that unlike traditional cars, the demand for high-computing chips for vehicle electrification and intelligence is getting higher and higher, "At present, most manufacturers pay attention to and develop on-board high-computing chips, rather than car chips in the traditional sense." Many OEMs hope to participate in the definition stage of chip hardware earlier, which also proves that high-computing power automotive chips are the core competitiveness of automakers, so as to gain more advantages and achieve differentiated competition. ”
In addition, the demand for power devices such as IGBTs and MOSFETs in automotive electrification has risen sharply, and it has also become one of the key areas of OEMs. When BYD acquired Ningbo Zhongwei in 2008, it clearly stated that the acquisition was mainly to obtain the research and development capacity and production capacity of electric vehicle drive motors. Today, Ningbo Zhongwei has grown into BYD Semiconductor, and BYD has become one of the few OEMs in the world to achieve self-sufficiency in IGBT power devices.
At present, although the automotive chip represented by the MCU is tense, but behind it is mainly due to the short-term rupture of the supply chain caused by the epidemic, the industry believes that this is a short-term market behavior, even if the mitigation requires a slow process, the traditional chip companies will not expand production for this, Dr. Wang Kai said that if the production is greatly expanded, there is not only the problem of increased procurement faced by the expansion, but also the problem of capacity utilization after the demand is alleviated.
The author also found in the statistics of the participation of OEMs in core manufacturing in recent years that more than 40 chip investment projects are related to autonomous driving chips, and the layout areas are mainly high-computing chips and lidar; more than 14 are related to power devices; while the layout related to MCUs is only 5, and the layout of other auxiliary chips is even less.
Some chip layouts of major OEMs around the world (Source: Based on publicly available information)
Is it not necessarily the best choice to make a core in the future?
The industry holds two views on the core manufacturing of automakers.
The first is to support the core manufacturing of the vehicle factory, believing that the independent design of the chip by the vehicle factory is not only to grasp the initiative in the process of automobile electrification and intelligence, but also to improve the matching and integration of the chip and the vehicle system.
Industry knows that in the era of fuel vehicles, the engine is the core competitiveness of the main engine plant, in the past few decades, the mainland automotive industry "market for technology" has achieved limited results, industry analysis believes that the important reason for this result is the failure to master the core competitiveness. In the era of intelligence, high-computing chip will become a new core competitiveness.
Yu Kai believes that at present, China is leading the global development of automobile electrification and intelligence, "the first mass production of the most advanced intelligent driving chips is not a car company selected to be installed in Japan, nor a German car company, but a Chinese independent brand." It can be said that China has now become a source of innovation. ”
The chip and operating system are the digital base of the smart car, and openness and collaboration have been placed in the first place. To this end, Horizon has launched three major cooperation models with OEMs, in addition to providing chip platforms and operating system OS, Horizon can also open BPU IP for OEMs and help OEMs realize chip self-development.
Image source: Core Engine Technology
Another view is that the oem's self-developed chips face too many challenges, leaving aside the high chip threshold and the high requirements of the vehicle-grade chip, it faces a big problem in terms of talent.
At present, among the new forces of car manufacturing, Tesla and zero-run cars have become representative enterprises of self-developed chips, the reason why the former can successfully develop high-computing power autonomous driving chips, and the high-priced mining of the semiconductor industry legend Jim Keller (Jim Keller), Jim Keller is Apple's A series chips, AMD's K12 and Zen two major CPU architecture, Intel's 3D stacking chips and other well-known products of the core figures. Between 2016 and 2018, Jim Keller developed an FSD autopilot chip for Tesla, helping Tesla establish its position in the autopilot industry.
However, we have noticed that after the departure of Jim Keller, Tesla's autopilot chip seems to be frozen, the computing power has not improved, and its computing power level has also changed from the industry's leading to being surpassed by NVIDIA, Horizon, Black Sesame, etc. In the future, Cambrian, Qualcomm, Mobileye and other self-driving chip solution providers will continue to update higher computing chips, and Tesla's 72TOPS chip computing power is increasingly losing its competitive advantage.
Another oem zero-run car, in cooperation with the holding company Dahua shares to launch the Lingxin 01, the computing power of 4.2TOPS, mainly used for ADAS automatic driving assistance system, a person close to Dahua shares said, "This computing power can also meet the needs of a camera operation." It is worth noting that in the IPO prospectus submitted before zero run, there is no mention of the follow-up research and development and iteration planning of Lingxin 01, and some insiders believe that Lingxin 01 may not be updated again, and zero running may also choose the solution of other chip companies.
To this end, the industry on the automakers personally made cores expressed concern, a chip company said that the new forces of car manufacturing to open the market with cutting-edge technology, they naturally hope to control the core competitiveness of future intelligent cars, self-developed chips are also very positive, but automotive chips need a long period of accumulation, a little attention will become a lesson.
Wang Kai further analyzed, "Any successful automotive semiconductor company is the success of the product in the entire automotive market, not only in one manufacturer; in order to launch a very competitive product, it is necessary to have an open mind and an inclusive product system, extract the common needs of many car manufacturers, and meet everyone's long-term planning, so that products can have long-term and efficient competitiveness." ”
The author also found in the statistics that there are not many OEMs that really go down to the core, and in the more than 40 core cases in the statistics, there are only 5 companies in BYD, Tesla, zero-run cars, Hyundai and Volkswagen, of which Hyundai and Volkswagen's core building plans are still in planning. At present, there is only one AUTOmaker that can continuously develop and iterate chips, and it is also one of the automakers with the most complete types of automotive chips. It should be noted that BYD Semiconductor is currently seeking an independent listing, which will no longer be self-supplied, but for all OEMs in the industry.
Among the more than 40 cases counted by the author, half of them participated in the chip enterprises with mature chip program design and development capabilities in the form of equity participation, which has become the mainstream model of "core manufacturing" of OEMs, BYD, Great Wall, SAIC, Dongfeng, FAW, etc. Have corresponding cases; at the same time, there are 6 cases for the joint venture between the main engine factory and the chip company to set up a semiconductor company to enter the core, Geely is the main promoter of this model; another 10 cases are the main cases for the main engine factory and the chip solution supplier to reach cooperation, To carry out a certain degree of customized development to meet individual needs, this model is basically the same as purchasing chips.
From this, it can be seen that it is not easy for OEMs to build cores, and their mainstream choice is to deeply bundle with superior resources, among which NVIDIA, Core Qing Technology, Horizon, Black Sesame, Infineon, CRRC and other star companies are becoming the objects they are trying to attract. (Proofreader/James)