Analysis of automotive cockpit main chip market and industrial structure

The first type is the simplest one without a screen and only has the functions of radio and digital audio playback. This type of model is almost impossible to see in China, but there are still many sales in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, South America and Africa. The same is true for some low-end models in North America and Europe, which have a market share of about 10%. Its main chip is usually TEF6638HW launched by NXP in 2008. In fact, many mainstream models in 2017 use this chip, such as Toyota RAV4.

The second category is Display Audio, which has a screen but does not have navigation functions. It has Bluetooth and WiFi functions. Its market share is approximately 20%. Its main chips usually include NXP's dual-core i.MX6, South Korea's Telechips' TCC8931/TCC8971, STMicroelectronics' STA1095/STA1295, and many chips from Panasonic Semiconductor (acquired by Taiwan Nuvoton Semiconductor for US$250 million).

The third category can be called Infotainment, which usually has navigation, Internet access, and streaming media playback capabilities. This is the market mainstream.

The fourth category is those that share a hardware platform with instruments, that is, virtual machines, which can also be called domain controllers. The current market share is still very low. Typical models are all in China, such as Chery Xingtu, GAC Aion LX, Volkswagen ID.4 and Great Wall H6 top-end models. Virtual machines significantly increase software costs. If the volume is not large, it is difficult to amortize these software costs. On the contrary, the cost is higher than using two systems. Traditional car manufacturers also have concerns about the security of virtual machines. In addition, instrument suppliers and vehicle engine suppliers are usually separate, and merging them requires a process.

The Display Audio market is gradually shrinking, and except for STMicroelectronics (ST), the other three companies are in dire straits. After Panasonic Semiconductor is acquired by Taiwan Nuvoton Semiconductor, it will still maintain its market position because Panasonic Automotive Electronics is the world's largest Display Audio supplier and has a solid market position.

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ST also pays relatively high attention to the Display Audio market. It focuses on cost-effective mobile phone projection applications and strives to gain a larger market share. The main models are ST1275 and ST1295. The advantage of NXP is that it almost monopolizes the market in the radio chip field, and users can buy it all in one stop. Telechips also focuses on cost-effectiveness. Telechips’ revenue in 2019 was around US$110 million, which was the company’s highest revenue record in five years. In 2020, revenue fell by 24%. It also changed from a net profit of 8.3 billion won to a loss of 9.4 billion won. Revenue in the first quarter of 2021 was 25.4 billion won, a year-on-year increase of 13%, with a net loss of 900 million won.

Telechips is actively entering the high-end market, and its top flagship Dolphin 3H even regards Qualcomm SA8155 as its opponent. Dolphin3H’s 16-core design also has the most cores among cockpit SoCs.

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Telechips' main customers are Hyundai, Kia, Toyota, Mitsubishi and models after the original Daewoo Motors was acquired by General Motors. The main customers in the aftermarket are JVCKENWOOD and Alpine. Telechips focuses on high cost performance.

In the mid-to-low-end Infotainment field, NXP's market share is higher than that of Display Audio. In this field, apart from Telechips, NXP's competitors only have non-auto-standard chips from MediaTek or Qualcomm, as well as Renesas' R-CAR M3N. Renesas launched it relatively late, and its ecosystem is far inferior to NXP. Texas Instruments has also gradually withdrawn from the market. Texas Instruments originally relied on the J6 series to occupy a relatively high market share in Germany, but the J7 was launched relatively late and focused on the ADAS and gateway fields. During this period, Intel, Qualcomm and Renesas Take advantage of the opportunity. Texas Instruments' advantage lies in the DSP and analog fields. The development of high-computing power chips is not its strength, nor is it its direction, nor will it bring much profit. However, in the three major German luxury car fields, J6 has been converted into a sub-SoC for radio and navigation, and it will still have a place in the long term.

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Although it has been 10 years, the quad-core i.MX6 is still the dominant player in the mid-to-low-end Infotainment field. Major customers include Changan, Toyota, Nissan, PSA, Ford and mid- to low-end products.

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A typical case is Changan's inCall series, which includes most of Changan's main models and may be upgraded to i.MX8 in the future. NXP's last generation cockpit processor, i.MX8, was released as early as September 2013. However, until nearly 8 years later, the next generation i.MX processor has not been publicly released. There is no successor.

i.MX8 has gone through many twists and turns. Although it was released in 2013, the mass production version was only available in 2018. The price/performance ratio is naturally not high and there are not many customers. Except for the die-hard supporter Ford, all mid-to-high-end Sync4 cars use i.MX8 as the main processor. , the low-end CTR machine is still i.MX6. Domestic customers also include Zebra and PATEO, which are SAIC Passenger Cars. Apart from that, there are almost no big customers to be found.

NXP is unwilling to join the rapidly iterative computing power arms race launched by Qualcomm, Samsung, and NVIDIA. NXP's most advanced product currently in mass production is the Cortex-A72 architecture released by ARM in February 2015. Qualcomm and Nvidia are already using the A78 architecture. As we all know, each new generation of architecture requires more advanced process support. However, the cost of 7 nanometer and 5 nanometer is astonishing, often ranging from hundreds of millions to more than a billion dollars. NXP's current most advanced technology is only 14 nanometers. Fast iteration means fewer sales of each generation of products, which makes it difficult to spread R&D costs. If you follow competitors like Qualcomm and Samsung, you will either be dragged to death or suffer huge losses. Qualcomm and Samsung rely on their huge shipments and strong financial resources in the mobile phone field to easily share research and development costs, and they can also iterate quickly and drag their opponents forward. Although NXP claims that the next generation will choose TSMC's 5nm process, the specific time for mass production is unknown. According to the experience of i.MX8, even if the product is announced and mass produced, it will take 5 years, and there is no news about the product now. Mass production will not be until 7 or 8 years at the earliest. By then, 5nm will no longer be an advanced process.

In the mid-to-high-end Infotainment field, Qualcomm and MediaTek also have a place. MediaTek mainly cooperates with Geely, and the aftermarket market is also very strong. Qualcomm mainly operates BYD and Changan, and has almost a monopoly in the aftermarket field of online car-hailing. Qualcomm has two major categories. One is CSR chips. CSR was acquired by Qualcomm for US$2.4 billion in 2015. Its car SoC chips are actually from CSR. SiRF technology, acquired for US$136 million in 2009, used to focus on the aftermarket, but now it has a tendency to be used in front-loading applications. The other type is the non-auto-standard Snapdragon 625 for mobile phones. Although it was released in February 2016, its performance is sufficient to meet current mainstream applications.

There are many players in the mid-to-high-end Infotainment field and competition is fierce. The key factor for winning is not performance, but service and supply chain. In the mid-to-high-end Infotainment field, there are mainly five companies: Renesas, NVIDIA, Qualcomm, Intel, and Samsung. Four of them are semiconductor giants, and their revenue in the automotive field is almost negligible.

Intel currently has 5 chips to choose from, 4 of which were launched in August 2016, namely A3930/A3940/A3950/A3960. At the end of 2018, a new A3920 was added, which has slightly higher performance than the A3950 used in Tesla Model 3. However, it has not passed AEC-Q100 vehicle certification, but the price is much lower than the A3950. It is used by several non-first-tier emerging car manufacturers in China.

In terms of performance, Intel's A3900 series is far inferior to the other three. After all, it is a 4-core chip and was launched in 2016. But Intel is the most successful, with the widest range of customers, including die-hard supporter BMW, almost all of which use the flagship A3960. A number of GM’s main models, such as GMC’s SIERRA and DENALI, as well as the future electric Hummer. Cadillac's high-end Escalade, as well as Cadillac's flagship sedan Celestiq and electric SUV Lyriq, which will be launched in 2022 or 2023. The rest include high-end products and options from Hyundai and Kia, as well as the high-end Genesis. Subaru's mid-range and high-end models also use Intel chips across the board. It also includes Volvo’s main model XC40/60 and some Jaguar Land Rover models. Domestic models include Hongqi's three main models, Great Wall's F7 coupe, and Chery's Xingtu.

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Intel has not launched any new products except for the A3920 at the end of 2018. So why can Intel's A3900 series market share gradually increase? There may be two speculations. One is the supply chain. There has been a serious shortage of chips recently, but Intel's automotive chips will not be out of stock because Intel has its own wafer factory. Intel has the world's largest wafer production capacity surpassing TSMC, and its The wafer fabs are basically in the desert of Arizona, rather than the maverick Lone Star Republic of Texas with independent power grids, which can maximize the security of the supply chain. Renesas, Nvidia and Qualcomm all need to look at the faces of foundries, that is, the faces of Samsung and TSMC. Although Samsung also has its own wafer factory, on the one hand, Samsung started late. On the other hand, the Samsung factory is in Texas, where the winters are extremely cold and the summers are scorching hot. The power grid is independent and the power supply is not stable enough. After experiencing the core shortage incident, Intel's share is expected to further increase.

Then there is the service. In order to promote its chips, Intel has specially developed the ACRN virtual machine, which can be used by car manufacturers for free. This is the virtual machine used on Chery Xingtu. Intel has almost personally participated in several projects in China, no matter how big or small. This is Qualcomm, Nvidia, and Renesas are incomparable.

Qualcomm has invested a lot in the automotive business and updates its mobile phone products almost at the same time, unlike Samsung or MediaTek, which have to wait for at least a year. Because of its powerful performance, Qualcomm has received orders from Lynk & Co 01/05, GAC AION V/Y, Ideal and Xpeng. Overseas, they mainly include Volkswagen Golf 8, ID.3, Honda Accord, B9 generation Audi A4L, Land Rover Discovery and Land Rover Defender. . Although the former has gained a lot of public attention, its shipment volume is very low, far from being comparable to mainstream models. Only the Golf 8 and Accord have large overseas shipments. The Audi A4 is special. Qualcomm is just a flash in the pan. The B9.5 version of the Audi A4 that will be remodeled in mid-2021 and the B10 that will be remodeled in 2023 will use Samsung AutoV9. Not only the Audi A4, but also the entire range of Audi MIB3 TOP and the entire range of Porsche in the future. They will all switch to Samsung chips. In addition, Volkswagen’s ID.4 also uses Samsung AutoV9. In the future, Volkswagen may switch to using Samsung chips for its Golf 8 and ID.3. Domestic sales of the Golf 8 are not good, and the hatchback price of a sedan is unacceptable in China. European sales are still barely there. Even if it is launched in North America, it will be suppressed by Japan and South Korea, and sales will be very low.

Audi's overall switch to Samsung may be mainly due to software reasons. Audi prefers the more autonomous automotive-grade Linux, or AGL system, while Qualcomm prefers Android systems.

Although Qualcomm has an almost monopoly on emerging domestic flagship models and has received a lot of attention, and SA8155 has become a standard feature of flagship models, the sales volume of these high-priced models that are purely benchmarks will not be high. After mass production, it is estimated that sales will be difficult to exceed 1,000 units per month. Far from making up for the reduction on the Audi. In addition, the sluggish or tight production capacity of upstream wafer foundries has also affected Qualcomm's shipments.

Except for die-hard supporters Mercedes-Benz and Weilai, Nvidia's other customers are very low. Audi's instruments are Nvidia's second largest source of revenue after Mercedes-Benz. Audi's previous generation of cars also used NVIDIA chips, but the new ones launched in the second half of 2019 used Qualcomm chips, and will be changed to Samsung chips starting in 2021. Audi's instruments have always used NVIDIA chips, and there has been no change. Automotive business revenue in 2019 was approximately US$700 million. In 2020, it lost Audi as a major customer and dropped to US$536 million, a sharp decline of 23.4%. As for the more advanced intelligent driving chips, the current contribution is still very low, so low that it can be ignored.

Renesas’ cockpit MCUs almost monopolize the world, but its SoCs are not strong.

Overview of SoC used by Renesas Infotainment, picture source: Internet

Renesas' 3rd generation R-CAR series products were launched in December 2015 and went into mass production in December 2018. It received support from Toyota during the development process, and Toyota's Lexus will naturally adopt the R-CAR H3 across the board. However, Toyota's replacement speed is very slow. It will only begin a comprehensive upgrade from NX to R-CAR H3 or R-CAR H3N in early 2021. Lexus sold 720,000 vehicles in 2020, with North America and China contributing 300,000 and 225,000 sales respectively. It is expected to rise to 850,000 vehicles in 2021. In addition to Toyota, Nissan's high-end products also use R-CAR 3rd generation. For example, the upcoming new generation flagship electric car Ariya uses R-CAR M3W. Honda's high-end Acura and Mazda may also use the R-CAR 3rd generation.

Outside of Japan, Renesas has seized the market space of Texas Instruments and fully entered the public. Volkswagen's B-class cars Passat and Magotan fully adopt R-CAR M3W or R-CAR M3. The MQB A2 platform used by Volkswagen's mid-size SUVs may also fully use the R-CAR M3 in 2021. The MQB A2 platform includes Tiguan and Tanrong.

In the Chinese market, Renesas's main customers are Great Wall and Geely. Great Wall uses luxurious materials. Even pickups with less than 100,000 yuan use Renesas' M3N. The high-end version of its main model H6 is R-CAR H3. Geely Xingrui is a popular sedan that Geely directly put Volvo 2.0T engine on Geely cars. It is very strange that it uses Renesas’ old product, the MP6530 mass-produced in 2013, which adopts a quad-core design, namely A15 and A7.

Car regulations were ruthlessly crushed by Tesla, which used consumer-grade AMD graphics chips in the latest Model S without any scruples. The cars provided by Porsche to old users (those whose early cars did not have screens) use Zhuhai Quanzhi's post-installed chip T3, which is produced by Jiangxi Fengcheng Good Helper. Many mobile phone chips from MediaTek and Qualcomm have also moved from rear-mounted to front-mounted, and car specifications have been replaced by cost-effectiveness.