On April 14, Qualcomm Technologies officially announced a technical cooperation with The Stellantis Group for many years to come. For Qualcomm, a well-known semiconductor giant, many people must be familiar with it, but for the Stellantis Group, it is estimated that many people will feel strange.
In fact, The Stellantis Group is the world's fourth-largest automotive group formed by the merger of PSA Group and Fiat Chrysler Group (FCA) in a 50:50 share ratio. It includes 15 car brands that we are familiar with, such as Ferrari, Maserati, Alfa Romeo, Peugeot, Citroën, Jeep and so on.
Qualcomm's partnership is precisely through the adoption of a high-performance, low-power Snapdragon vehicle platform covering almost all automotive segments, providing intelligent, customizable and immersive in-car experiences for 14 car brands of the Stellantis Group from 2024, meeting the changing needs of customers for personalized and advanced experiences that can be continuously upgraded. Seeing this, perhaps careful friends may have found some clues.
There are 15 car brands in the Stellantis Group, so why does the cooperation with Qualcomm only involve 14 car brands? This is because before this cooperation was reached, Ferrari, a subsidiary of the Stellantis Group, had already taken the group one step ahead of the group and reached a related cooperation with Qualcomm as early as February 9 this year.
In fact, Qualcomm, as a leader in the field of automotive chips and an automotive digital giant, has been frequently moving in the automotive field in recent two years, and the automotive group that has reached strategic cooperation with it is far more than the Stellantis Group.
Qualcomm makes friends with car companies
In fact, Qualcomm began to lay out the automotive field as early as 2002, and now it is the first in the field of in-vehicle network connection and automotive wireless connection. To date, more than 150 million vehicles worldwide have adopted Qualcomm Automotive Wireless Solutions. As the car enters the era of intelligence, it has a full-stack layout in the field of intelligent vehicles.
In terms of smart car chip, Qualcomm Snapdragon SA8155P, as Qualcomm's flagship vehicle specification chip, has become a coveted commodity for car companies. Among them, Euler, a pure electric brand under Great Wall Motors, is even more deeply involved in the public opinion storm because it "pretends" to be equipped with Qualcomm Snapdragon SA8155P.
In addition to the "equipped" Qualcomm Snapdragon SA8155P Euler in the publicity stage, Xiaopeng P5, Weilai ET7, Zhiji L7 and other major intelligent new cars, including the car specification chip, Cadillac LYRIQ is equipped with an upgraded version of qualcomm Snapdragon SA8155P SA8195P.
The Qualcomm Snapdragon SA8195P chip uses TSMC's 7nm process, and the GPU is upgraded from Adreno 640 to Adreno 680. Therefore, in terms of AI computing power, the SA8195P can reach close to 8TOPS, which is double that of SA8155P.
In addition, as we all know, Qualcomm's new generation of Snapdragon 8 mobile platform uses the industry-leading 4nm process, and the Qualcomm Snapdragon SA8295P vehicle specification-level chip jointly released by It and Baidu Auto's Jidu Automobile also uses the 5nm process, becoming the world's first 5nm process of the car specification chip.
Compared with the Qualcomm Snapdragon SA8155P, which is currently being competed for by car companies, the pixel support and 3D rendering capabilities of qualcomm Snapdragon SA8295P have been increased by 3 times, and the computing power has reached 30TOPS, almost 4 times that of SA8195P. It is understood that in addition to Jidu Automobile, the first model of Xiaomi Automobile may also be equipped with this powerful vehicle specification-level chip.
In addition to chips, Qualcomm also has the Qualcomm digital chassis that traditional car companies dream of. Car companies can choose any or all of the platforms covered by snapdragon's digital chassis in their product lines, and highly customized their models through continuous upgrades in the cloud.
Autonomous driving is one of the most core technologies in the era of smart cars, and Qualcomm acquired autonomous driving company Arriver on April 4 this year, earning money on the ability to openly integrate advanced driver assistance system solutions. In the future, Arriver's driver assistance assets will become an important part of Snapdragon's "digital chassis" platform.
At this point, Qualcomm's layout in the field of intelligent vehicles has reached a stage. In Xiao Lei's view, comprehensive intelligent car technology is the main reason why traditional car companies are willing to "make friends" with Qualcomm.
Why do car companies make friends with Qualcomm?
Although traditional car companies have decades and centuries of automotive technology heritage, the profound technical background and manufacturing experience of most of the new car-making forces are beyond reach. However, the new car-making forces on the mainland have basically completed the overtaking of foreign traditional car companies by virtue of the awakening of the "electric shock" one step ahead.
In addition, the backward layout of electrification is not the only shortcoming of traditional car companies, and the advantages of new car-making forces in intelligence are also beyond the reach of most traditional car companies. In Xiao Lei's view, if traditional car companies do not want to be subverted by the new car-making forces led by Tesla, then they must make up for their shortcomings in a short period of time.
In order to make up for its shortcomings, Volkswagen Group set itself a five-year investment plan of up to 150 billion euros (about 1,042.6 billion yuan) as early as 2020. Of this, 73 billion euros will be invested in "future technologies" including electric mobility, hybrid technology and digitalization. Within a year, the Volkswagen Group invested up to 2.5 billion euros in the development of its software development division.
As Volkswagen Group invests heavily in the software sector, its nemesis, Toyota Motor Corporation, naturally cannot sit still. Toyota motor set up three subsidiaries last year, and their core mission is to develop software businesses such as autonomous driving, automotive operating systems, and high-definition maps.
Among the traditional car companies in China, Geely Group has also shown a eager attitude towards the field of automotive software. In January this year, it was rumored that Hubei Xingji Times Technology Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Geely Group, was negotiating with Meizu for an acquisition.
In Xiao Lei's view, if the rumors are true, then rather than saying that Geely Group has taken a fancy to Meizu's sluggish mobile phone business, it is better to say that it is drunk and does not mean to drink. Because it looks at a large number of intelligent software talent resources accumulated by Meizu in recent years. You know, through the acquisition of "downfall" companies, obtaining talent resources has been a routine operation of Li Shufu.
Toyota and Volkswagen are the world's top auto groups, but not all car companies are as rich as they are, and they can often invest tens of billions of yuan in "future technology". On the other hand, traditional car companies need a time to cultivate into a completely new field. According to the Volkswagen Group's plan, it will not launch an E-software platform for all brands and models until 2025.
If traditional car companies adopt technology provided by third-party software giants, they only need to adapt accordingly, and the effect can be described as immediate. Compared with the two giants in the traditional automobile field, volkswagen group and Toyota motor, which develop software technology, finding a strong partner may be the best choice for most traditional car companies.
As a giant in the field of technology, Qualcomm has a deep involvement in the fields of automotive chips and automotive software, and has almost a full set of technologies required for smart cars. In Xiao Lei's view, reaching cooperation with Qualcomm can be seen as a low-cost shortcut for traditional car companies to carry out intelligent transformation.
In the 22 years of cultivating the automotive field, Qualcomm's presence in the automotive field is not high. In Xiao Lei's view, this is mainly because in the era of traditional fuel vehicles, automobile intelligence is not the focus of traditional car companies, so qualcomm's participation in the automotive field is not high as that of the main intelligent technology giant.
Nowadays, traditional fuel vehicles are about to be subverted, new energy vehicles have officially entered the stage of automobile history, and the automotive industry has ushered in the era of software-defined cars. In Xiao Lei's view, the "software-defined era" is also the best time for Qualcomm to shine in the automotive field and become the "Bosch" in the field of automotive intelligence.
Note: The material for this article comes from the Internet