Vertex Family |Chi Technology: an undervalued unicorn of Chinese automotive chips

Image credit | Movie "Daydreamer"

Source | Tiger Sniff Technology Group

Author | Fu Bo

In 2019, Vertex Investment invested hundreds of millions of yuan in the Pre-A round of financing of SchirpS Technology for the first time, and continued to increase its size in the subsequent A and B rounds of financing.

On the cockpit platform of a famous car manufacturer, there are two sets of schemes side by side, one from Qualcomm and one from The Core Chi.

This could not have happened three years ago.

Over the years, the localization rate of China's automotive semiconductors has only been 3% to 5%, and the European and American giants with rich product lines, diverse technical routes and strong R&D teams have firmly controlled the important joints of each bone of a car.

However, the tide of overseas semiconductor mergers and acquisitions, sanctions and shortages are almost intensively intertwined at a point in time, which directly leads to a large-scale crack in the semiconductor talent map again - around 2018, like other industries, low-key auto chip giants like sweeping monks, sat in front of investors with full collars.

The first time I met Qiu Yujing, co-founder and CEO of XinChi, was at a Beijing Express Hotel that did not have a street front. The floor hall of less than 10 square meters is almost filled with "backpackers" who come to Beijing for business like her, and can only go to her room for a chat.

In the narrow room where the ceiling was about to reach its head, we made a joke that this treatment was absolutely impossible in the big factory before, and she also made a joke: "It's already good, maybe my room is slightly bigger than the downstairs room?" ”

Rustic, peaceful and extremely firm. Under this image is the industrial status of NXP's former head of R&D of China's automotive grade chips.

Qiu Yujing once managed a research and development team of more than 100 people, and in the case of parallel competition between multiple global R&D teams of this auto giant, he killed a bloody road and launched the world's largest market share of the car cockpit chip Imx series, covering almost all mainstream models.

Later, as soon as the news of Qualcomm's acquisition of NXP was released, Qiu Yujing realized that the continuous mergers and acquisitions between the giants could no longer meet the needs of the rapid response of the domestic automobile market, and finally walked out of the "foreign office building".

"In the past, 60% of the energy was always spent on cross-departmental communication and coordination, but now we can concentrate and move forward lightly." She said.

She and her long-acquainted work partner, Zhang Qiang, head of NXP's Automotive Division in Greater China, joined forces to promote the birth and evolution of Xinchi. And her R&D "Iron Triangle" - architecture, software, hardware leaders also followed. According to anecdotal legend, this is a team that tacitly understands each other to communicate with each other with their eyes, and there is no cost of communication and trust.

On the left is Zhang Qiang, and on the right is Qiu Yujing

In 3 years, the valuation of Xin Chi has also risen, and after the end of the B round of financing in 2021, it will be officially promoted to a member of the 10 billion club. Even in China, where the chip entrepreneurship army is rising, automotive chip unicorns are still rare.

Immediately after, the coreless curtain pulled up rapidly, and from the outside world, this is like a double outlet for startups, and it is simply not more fortunate.

"When we came out, the market was not short of cores, that is, to make products that could be competed for in the world." Zhang Qiang later explained, "If semiconductor companies do not compete globally, everything will be meaningless. ”

Let experience speak

For Qiu and Zhang, the decades of overseas factories are a golden age of striving for the upstream; but for the domestic automotive semiconductor industry, it represents a precious experience that can be sold at a price.

In the high-profile announcement of the formation of a team, the successful mass production, and even the special grand unveiling ceremony of one startup after another, the first year of the establishment of the core Chi, the financing time is strictly controlled within 2 months, and most of the energy is planning a "product square map" about the long-term survival of the enterprise -

Launched a product line with at least four different chip types including smart cockpits, gateway chips, MCUs, and autonomous driving to strengthen the coverage of automotive processor categories.

In fact, this "comprehensive fist" product deployment model was one of the root secrets of the automotive semiconductor giant's decades of standing.

Unless it is a huge consumer market such as "mobile phone" and "PC", the key to the deep roots of automotive electronics giants such as NXP, Renesas, Infineon, and Texas Instruments is that "in each vertical category of automotive chips, the number of product models is outrageous."

Whether it is SoCs, analog chips or MCUs and sensor chips, there are dozens or hundreds of product models to cover the market demand.

"When the product line is rich, the big manufacturers no longer care about the profitability of a single chip." He can use a chip to hit different markets, which market gets millions of orders, he can immediately make more investment for this market.

In stark contrast, the product plans of many Chinese semiconductor companies over the years have been highly speculative: what is hot and what is done.

For example, at the end of the 20th century, the BB machine market was very hot, and some manufacturers invested heavily in BB machine chips. Soon, when this communication tool quickly withdrew from the stage of history, not a single chip could be sold. However, the MP3 era followed, so smart manufacturers stuffed the chip into the MP3, which sold well and was successfully listed.

"With just one chip, once the product planning does not match the needs of automotive customers, it may completely collapse." Zhang Qiang said that without a deep understanding and prediction of the automotive electronics industry, a company may quickly collapse within 3 years.

In fact, in addition to being conducive to market competition, experienced chip product managers are very clear that this planning concept can allow products with the same process and similar architecture to share a basic technology platform - not only making the design efficiency extremely high, but also allowing chips and chips to support each other at the system and development layers, saving money and time.

The direct result of this product idea is that 16 months after the establishment of the company, the 16-nanometer vehicle specification SOC, cockpit, automatic driving and gateway chips have completed the tape-out one after another, and mass-produced in early 2021.

But what is more interesting is that at the beginning of its establishment, SingChi was TSMC's direct account (direct customer supply). During the 2020 epidemic, when their industry peers were pessimistic about the market, they booked sufficient capacity with TSMC.

Perhaps to be expected, in late 2020, behind the curtain of the worst car core shortage in history, the premise of "guaranteed supply" provided a huge assist advantage for The core chi to frequently win orders from the car factory in 2021.

In fact, this is not a coincidence.

Based on more than 20 years of experience in prejudging the automotive supply chain, Zhang Qiang, co-founder and chairman of Xinchi Technology, remembers that the automotive industry also experienced a huge rebound period after the END of SARS in 2003, which can provide reference for the trend of the automotive supply chain after the epidemic.

"After the outbreak of the new crown epidemic, car sales were dismal. Around April 2020, the entire automotive industry was cutting orders, and fab capacity was not so tight, but at that time, we booked a lot of capacity with TSMC. In August of the same year, the automobile industry began to recover, and the tide of lack of cores began. Until this year, it has changed from a comprehensive lack of cores to a structural lack of cores, and the car is still in a state of structural shortage. ”

However, some domestic start-up companies choose to deploy production capacity only during mass production, so it is quite difficult to promote the follow-up whether it is negotiating with fabs or the normal mass production progress.

"If in the consumer electronics market, few companies dare to book a large amount of capacity in advance, because once consumers don't need it, then the batch will be completely obsolete." But the automotive supply chain has always been an industry with 'particularly high pre-judgmental requirements'. Zhang Qiang pointed out that whether it is hoarding goods or looking for cores, the winner of this battle is obviously an experienced depot.

The dawn is on

Under normal circumstances, OEMs that are rich but attach great importance to decision-making security can never give trust to chip startups, even if the entrepreneurs are their old friends for many years.

The difficult moment experienced at the beginning of the establishment of Xin Chi also once again confirmed the enduring business characteristics of the automobile industry:

From the success of tape-outs, to the development of customer products, to the real mass production, there are several steps up the ladder, and the success of tape-outs is just the beginning.

"Although financing and small-scale mass production can be said, we must soberly realize that in the automotive semiconductor industry, this means nothing." If you want to gain a foothold in this industry, at least millions of shipments. Zhang Qiang explained that this is the reason why Xin Chi is unwilling to "emerge" in the mass media in recent years.

From the beginning of 2020, Zhang Qiang began to frequently visit major OEMs and Tier1. Meeting is of course easy, and networking is still there. However, the background aura of mutual trust and cooperation in the past is only enough to save the time cost of "making a phone call to let the big guy see you".

"It was very difficult. Many customers say to your face that you are definitely no problem, but turn around and order it is still given to the industry giants. A full year after the establishment of Xinchi, the international giant company still has the water around the depot.

However, the rhythm of the chip on the car has a certain periodicity, from the first communication to the sample test, the intermediate span is at least half a year. This is not too long to wait, but it is mixed with a lot of stone sinking replies.

In November 2020, Zhang Qiang felt that this was a very confusing and critical stage for the company, because it could not break through large customers. In the automotive supply chain, "big customers" are the first gate to break the inherent market entrenchment force situation, and must be won.

"Visiting Yanfeng visteon three times in a month, starting from the chip layout to technology and quality control, is to get their support." Zhang Qiang understands that to accurately transmit the chip value of Xinchi, it is necessary to first understand the "decision chain" within the customer - not as long as there is a good product, it will be selected.

It is clear that the intricate relationship chain of the automotive electronics giant for decades is one of the key factors that car manufacturers and Tier1 need to carefully consider replacing chips. The balance between the various departments of the main engine factory and the supply chain makes the decision-making level need to make the most balanced comprehensive judgment in combination with the changes in the objective environment.

Until the beginning of 2021, FAW, Yanfeng Visteon and the "next hire" of the Ningde era allowed Xinchi to pry open the first market gap.

In order to fulfill its commitment to customers, Chipper must send samples to customers before the Spring Festival in 2020. At that time, it was close to the Spring Festival, and many logistics had stopped. In the end, Qiu Yuzhen personally ran to Taiwan to hold the chip back.

"The night before it lights up, a lot of engineers can't sleep with both excitement and fear, and this time too." Qiu Yuzhen's first chip design job in Silicon Valley in 1998 saw the failure of tape-outs. The silent scene of "the chip can't be lit, and it turns into a brick in an instant" made her fall into a deep fear.

"Making chips, people's courage will be smaller and smaller, and you will be more and more in awe of the industry, because there are too many places that can go wrong, too many places that will be unthinkable due to neglect."

Xin Chi gave himself the first generation of chips shipped back from Taiwan and held a welcome ceremony that was more solemn than that of humans. When the truck carrying the chips drove downstairs to the company in Zhangjiang, engineers applauded and even whistled.

The chip was sent into a "sacred" test lab, and most people had to wait outside for news. Every once in a while, the lab erupts in cheers, and people outside squeeze in to take a look. Eventually, the chip, which was less than the size of a thumb, ran its first line of code on Linux 20 minutes later and ran on Android 24 hours later.

The whole nervous process was described by the engineers involved as "an inexplicable feeling that everyone was waiting outside the delivery room for their child to be born."

"The moment the chip lit up, the whole company boiled over."

One of the things That Qiu Yuzhen often told the team was that the experience was piled up with money, and the second was piled up with snap pieces. No matter how capable and smart people are, this tuition fee must also be paid.

"Every time before the film, everyone will jump. It's like the pain before giving birth. If you don't experience that feeling, you will feel as if everything is going well. But the pain is actually behind, it's still early. ”

Although we will not use tape-outs to directly judge the strength of a chip company, an employee who did not want to be named said that he once asked Qiu Yujing what to do if the first-rate film failed. The engineer, who has been in the industry for more than 24 years, just replied calmly:

"Tape-out failed, I don't have that option here."

The desire and pain of the depot

At least 10 years ago, the on-board screen of my father's vintage Audi was "impressive"—there wasn't a moment of stuttering maps and extremely low-resolution interfaces that left one wondering what it could do but spit.

In fact, the model planning at that time was limited by too many rules and regulations, and the car screen was no exception.

In 2010, an international car company wanted to list a model in China, when designing the control board, in addition to the material of the touch screen (there was no capacitive touch screen at that time) and the cost limit, the biggest problem was that it was impossible to find a chip that could effectively run a high-resolution large screen.

A Tier1 eventually gave them a 7-inch machine and replied that "the size and function of the room for change is almost zero", and the car manufacturer finally had to accept it all.

But in the past 10 years, many of the limitations of technology and materials have disappeared. For example, no matter how large the screen size, material or even shape is special, OEMs can now pay for Pegasus and BOE customization, and the maturity of anti-glare capacitor technology and flat fit level makes the cost no longer terrible.

On the basis that the screen material and structure no longer pose a problem, the car factory began to diverge the imagination of design:

The central control board is all screens, there are screens on the windows, the seat backup is also a screen, and the roof can also be installed on the screen... These screens were not only required to be linked, but even by the Smart Surface team of the depot, imposing a sense of atmosphere comparable to cinema and KTV.

The BMW i7's new Theater Screen system descends from the top of the cabin. Image from wired

However, if the chip is not taken into account, 80% of these wild imaginations are still not used.

Finally, the automakers realized that they could no longer remain ignorant of chips: instead of brainstorming things that could not be achieved, they should first find me chip companies from all over the world.

Driven by Tesla's "global intelligent movement" and the true and false marketing atmosphere of the automobile industry, the new design thinking of models generated around intelligence has also loosened the hierarchical supply chain.

"The oem's willingness to have in-depth exchanges with chip companies stems from a huge resonance between the two sides----- breaking the contradiction between their boundary restrictions in model design."

Xu Chao, vice president of Xin Chi, has traveled to major Chinese depots for more than ten years, eaten all over the canteens of depots, and also seen the organizational structure of depots and the execution focus of front-line engineers, with the subtle changes of intelligent technology.

"We got involved in this discussion: what can definitely be made, what is good, what is not. The premise is that on the basis of the existing chip capability support. ”

He pointed out that if a car's electronics and electrical department only gives a cockpit budget of 3,000 yuan, but the design team generates 10,000 pieces of imagination, the contradiction will be triggered.

Therefore, the planning of a model has begun to match the rhythm and design capabilities of a chip company.

"Their ability and willingness to learn are very strong." In recent years, Xu Chao Sports Car Factory has hardly seen front-line engineers who do not want to learn more real skills, especially chip knowledge. "Of course, automakers are becoming demanding of their own teams: a Smart Surface team must understand chips."

Interestingly, in the process of this automaker's eagerness to extend an olive branch, the traditional automotive semiconductor giants frowned, creating concerns about route selection, operating costs and design risks, while the new entrants were bold and moving forward.

"This is one of the reasons why crossovers and startups such as Qualcomm are popular."

Of course, "selling one more car" is more driven by the desire to compete in the market. The "core seeking" war, which lasted for two full years and was huge, really allowed the depot to walk out of the "obsession" repeated in the history of lack of cores and personally knock on the door of chip manufacturers.

A northern automaker executive fell into deep pain in 2021. As a decision-maker in charge of material procurement, he coordinates more than 60 suppliers behind more than 180 automotive materials throughout the year. "A car is calculated according to more than 100 MCUs, more than 60 material numbers, as long as one supplier is out of stock, this car cannot be put on the line."

Therefore, reducing the number of chips used and shrinking the scope of electronic suppliers is that the bosses wake up the next day after drinking and hanging up in order to find the core

The first "big thing" that has not been forgotten. At the same time, the trend of "normalization" of automotive electronic and electrical architectures is also accompanied by pain, and it is forced to press the accelerator key.

The biggest advantage of the central computing architecture, which has been in bmw and Volkswagen electronic design innovation reports since 2017, is that it "allows software to be reusable and self-iterative on new hardware." However, in the past few years, almost only the concept has been heard in China, and the implementation results are not clear.

The head of the department of a domestic traditional car factory's best-selling models once complained fiercely about how much "inhuman" torture the old set of electronic and electrical architectures brought to them:

Open a "hidden door" at the bottom of the car, and you will see a dense dozen controller boxes, "grafted" on the central pipe, and each box corresponds to a newly added function.

"Whether it's wipers, air conditioning, windows, seats or center screens, in the traditional model, providers are independent suppliers of hardware and systems.

If you go to multiple original factories to solve the development of data, instruction interoperability and joint functions, the cost may be as high as tens of millions, and you can't sell so many cars. So many times for the realization of an innovative function, it is better to find a third party to add a small box to finish. And that's how the money is earned by the vendors of these cumbersome systems.

Therefore, the reform of the automobile architecture, the car manufacturer shouted the loudest. One of the most prescient moves was Volkswagen Group CEO Dr. Diess' drastic electrification and digital transformation reforms in 2018, even after encountering a flood of counterattacks from inherent interest groups.

Therefore, an important reason why this structural evolution that should be the trend of the times cannot be achieved overnight is how to solve a traditional management problem - "how to make the elephant dance".

It's not just about technology, it's about the organization.

More and more people of insight in traditional car manufacturers have found that the "department wall" is the biggest obstacle to the internal promotion of the development of underlying technology. Whether it is the engine, the gearbox or the chassis department, if you don't push down and crush the respective walls, but just erect a high chimney on a thin platform, then there is no difference from before.

"After we contacted, some OEMs are doing a more in-depth and thorough personnel structure adjustment. If you don't break the wall of this department, it will be a dead end in the era of intelligence. Xu Chao saw the determination and boldness of some car companies.

Obviously, in this traditional automaker counterattack war from the "traditional flat domain control architecture" to the "central computing platform", there must be a place for chip companies.

In particular, a flexible system that has the ability to respond quickly to this trend will be one of the biggest advantages for startups to conquer new markets.

Take the initiative

In today's market, a moment of hesitation will miss the opportunity.

Every sober auto industry person can now see two windows: one is a long window of opportunity for the transformation from a functional machine to a smart machine, and the other is a vacuum window that responds to market demand.

In the face of the ship's difficulties, automotive semiconductor giants, such as Qualcomm's "airborne soldiers", have accurately drilled into the gap of this vacuum period, especially in the Chinese market, which has a "strong competitive spirit". Therefore, they have gone from less than a single-digit market share in the cockpit chip market three years ago to constantly encroaching on the share of the elderly, and have become the largest head suppliers at present.

The opposite is Intel.

The chip giant, which has invested more than 2 billion yuan in the field of cockpit chips, did grab a lot of models a few years ago, but due to various "giant diseases" such as historical baggage and strategic shifting of the center of gravity, this vertical market has now been almost abandoned by Intel.

"The unstable market is the best opportunity for us 'aliens'." Xu Chao saw the hesitation and insincerity of the auto chip giants. At this time, for new enterprises, it is a kind of homeopathic design to make the product route planned from scratch a new architecture.

Obviously, the four product lines of Xinchi in the intelligent cockpit, automatic driving, central gateway, and MCU chip echo the only way for the depot to evolve from the traditional decentralized architecture to the current four-domain control architecture, and then to the integration into the central computing platform architecture.

The core advantage of The core chi is still based on the system-level chip design capabilities that the team is good at. This is the comprehensive evaluation given by several chip bigwigs in the industry that we have contacted.

However, to really break into the depot, they need to perfectly answer their "soul three questions": Who has used it? Mass production? Who is responsible for the problem?

As centuries-old shops of safety supremacy, automakers define demand and do not require startups to directly subvert the giant in product performance, on the contrary, they are less and less likely to stuff a chip they don't know anything about into the car;

Second, does the supplier have the ability to pay huge compensation in the event of a recall? This problem cannot be solved, and it is usually a disaster for the company.

In 2008, the recall of 100 million airbag defects that affected 19 automakers, including Honda, Ford, Volkswagen, and Tesla, left airbag manufacturer Takata unable to return to heaven and filed for bankruptcy protection in 2017.

"It's very realistic, performance and safety, like fish and bear paws, can not be combined in the automotive market."

Therefore, X-Chi chose to ensure safety first and won the ASIL-D level process certification. This is a key automotive functional safety certification level system, and the D level represents the highest level of safety risk prevention ability in the automotive field, the most difficult to apply, and the review process is more and more cumbersome.

Some of the software engineers of XinChi are not without opinions about the company's annual cooperation in accepting the rigorous certification audit of THE ASIL-D level, because it does add a lot of extra work.

But just as the cognition of the automobile and Internet industries has been colliding, the software and algorithm engineers of chip companies have to accept the fact that the "safety rules" summarized by the traditional automobile industry from countless car accidents in a hundred years are at least well-founded.

It represents rigor and responsibility, as opposed to freedom and looseness.

"You can call it troublesome, but this process doesn't just align your way of thinking with the auto industry, it makes you think one step further:

After this function is implemented, how do I record and correct the error when the failure occurs, and how do I let it continue to complete the guarantee work in the event of a serious failure? ”

The Chinese technical reference manual and the precautions marked in "bold bold" after rigorous word review are not only a kind of investment for Chinese car manufacturers, but also can be regarded as the necessary localization ability of Chinese startups.

In 2021, Xinchi made a gateway project for a northern depot - this is a communication component that connects multiple parts in the car, and already has a mature set of configuration software. However, vehicle engineers also want a clear description of the data transfer process.

The solution is actually not difficult. The XCHI engineers added a separate customizable and self-naming sequence to the configuration software, which is an extra line of code that is only very user experience-friendly, but did not expect to be very popular.

In addition, the chip on the car is missing all kinds of underlying debugging tools. However, in the face of tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of Rautbach and hundreds of thousands of popular kits, the acceptance of engineers must be different, and the difficulty of procurement approval of depots is also different.

The method adopted by XinChi is the same as that of many large manufacturers: it is connected with different brands of tools. Under such conditions, depot engineers can complete some of the higher technical capabilities with more cost-effective debuggers. But many Chinese companies have not done this.

"The car was ultimately made by the first-line brothers." Xu Chao feels that the details are in place, which will make the engineers of both sides feel the resonance and respect between each other from the heart. Suggestions and needs from the front line will be discussed in detail, but commitments will not be made easily. Because once a commitment is made, it must be delivered on time with quality.

"Suppliers digging pits but not filling them are fatal to managers and executives in the automotive industry."

In the automotive supply chain market, there is a default evaluation criterion: you only need to say that two customers are the top Japanese automotive electronics suppliers, you can prove that the products and services can reach the global top level.

"The rigor of Japanese manufacturers is more terrible than in Germany," the night when the technical team of Xinchi technical team and the Japanese Alpine exchange ended, the other side's technical experts drew up a total of 170 engineering questions on 3 pages, and made a concise and concise request through email: hoping to get a reply within a week.

"It can't last a week, we have to use it for three days." On the third evening, the technical team gathered up the accurate answers and submitted them.

Although the Japanese manufacturer's audit is very cautious and rigorous, once the judgment is made, it will not be entangled. After their Japanese technical experts gave the evaluation that "the answer is professional and accurate, this is a trustworthy team", the Alpe Dalian China Business Department called the next day:

"Let's talk about the cooperation on mass production projects."

A new force car factory once gave the core Chi a two-word evaluation - "reliable". This word, in fact, in the current rich capital fantasy but scarce hard work in China's chip industry, is a more rare market certification.

Ending: Hero of the Times

In "Blue Blood Ten", which describes Ford's subversive reforms in the 1940s, the author once described the allure of the automobile market and the enthusiasm of the time: "If a hero does not engage in real estate and does not sell clothes, where should he go?" He should sell dreams, power and speed. ”

China, on the other hand, has ushered in a similar moment of fanaticism. However, this fanaticism is engraved with "independence", more from the shouts from the bottom of the car, although the voice is still faint.

But compared with the monopoly of the consumer electronics market, the hesitation of cloud manufacturers, and too many government-procured chips but piled up in warehouses, the financial, melee, boldness and opportunism of the auto market may be the best stage for Chinese chips to jump out of the "hero useless place".

"Everything you're going through now is too much like Silicon Valley in the late '90s." Qiu Yujing, who found his first chip design job in Silicon Valley in 1998, has witnessed the rise of hundreds of chip startups.

At that time, Nvidia was still a small company with no name, and had just released two failed products, and was fighting with more than a dozen display chip companies such as 3Dfx, SIS, and ATI. And now, time has swallowed up most silicon valley chip startups with traces of their existence in this world.

But history is good at repeating itself.

Xin Chi, just one of the thousands of semiconductor companies that suddenly appeared in China's business registration form in a few years, has temporarily found a place in the rapid intelligent transformation of China's automobiles, but it does not mean that they can crush a powerful opponent.

From 2021 to 2022, XinChi will confront the giants in some automotive projects. Interestingly, the result is not an absolute failure and success, on the contrary, many times "coexistence" and "balance".

Of course, the giants will never welcome outsiders. In a cockpit project, the depot invited The factory to start research and development because the large factory was out of stock, but the big factory immediately guaranteed the supply, provided that the other party terminated the research and development.

"Actually, we're just one of those 5 percent." Zhang Qiang believes that more automotive semiconductor startups need to increase the proportion of this number together, and the first goal of Xinchi is to reach 30%.

In addition, in addition to its own product performance, chip development tools and ecology are still an important link in all domestic automotive chips, including Xinchi, and also a lever to determine whether this crack can be expanded again.

According to a car-level chip performance tuning technology big guy, not only do car manufacturers do not understand chips, most domestic chips lack control over algorithm capabilities.

As a result, 5% of Chinese companies have never been competitors with each other.

"A lot of people will ask how the unicorn valuation is higher than yours, whether the startup's product is performing better than yours. On the contrary, what is there to grab this share? Not worth it. We are all a leaf boat in the sea. ”

Zhang Qiang feels that if it is still like the past, it is not possible to compete in the market in the world, then this batch of automotive electronics entrepreneurship does not make much sense.

From 2018 to the present, thousands of new chip startups have appeared in the industrial and commercial register, many of which are huge, but only a small number of mass production, commercial use is even rarer, and bubbles exist in large quantities. Five years later, this group of warriors who dared to challenge the most difficult industries did not bring impactful changes to industries including automobiles and servers.

Of course, cycles need to be respected, and strength needs to be built up. The Chinese market needs more doers to tear open multiple gaps for the semiconductor industry in a way that does not shout slogans.