Automotive semiconductors have great potential. Can MediaTek seize the opportunity?

The "four new trends" of automobiles, namely electrification, intelligence, networking and sharing, are giving rise to a "revolution on the road". In this process, the cost of automotive electronic components is rising year by year. According to data from market analysis agency Deloitte, the average semiconductor cost of a car was US$213 in 2013, and this figure will reach more than US$600 by 2020.

The huge market potential has attracted many Internet and semiconductor manufacturers to choose "cross-border", including Google and Baidu, which focus on autonomous driving, Alibaba and Tencent, which focus on car service systems, and of course Huawei, which is determined to become a new tier 1 manufacturer. In this "cross-border" list, there is a manufacturer that invested very early but is very low-key, and it is MediaTek . Xu Jingquan, deputy general manager of MediaTek and general manager of the intelligent automotive business unit, said: "MediaTek invested in the automotive field very early, and began to enter the aftermarket from consumer electronics in 2012. By 2015, we noticed that the automotive original equipment market was undergoing industrial changes, including the 'new four modernizations', car networking , AI, etc. Technological changes have made it impossible for the supply chain to supply, and also created opportunities for some new entrants. Therefore, starting in 2015, MediaTek began to enter the original equipment market."

Image source: MediaTek official website

According to Xu Jingquan, the automotive division of MediaTek officially became a BU (Business Unit) last year, mainly covering four major business areas, namely smart cockpit , vehicle network, assisted driving and smart camera. Currently, this division has more than 100 people, but in fact, MediaTek has invested hundreds of people in automotive R&D. In addition to conventional departments such as R&D and marketing, this BU also has a dedicated automotive quality unit, which works closely with the BU to meet customers' quality needs.

From consumer-grade to automotive-grade, MediaTek's products have undergone a qualitative change

Everyone is familiar with MediaTek, a world-renowned IC design company that has been focusing on wireless communications and digital multimedia. In the past, MediaTek products were mostly used in the consumer market, but entering the automotive field is not simply selling products to car manufacturers or tier 1 and tier 2 manufacturers, but must ensure that the products meet automotive grade requirements.

What kind of electronic components are automotive-grade devices?

To become an automotive-grade component, a product must meet multiple inspections including environmental requirements, vibration, impact, reliability, consistency requirements, manufacturing processes, product life cycle, standards, etc. Every component used in automobiles has undergone "devilish" testing.

Xu Jingquan said: "Safety must be taken into consideration for everything installed on the vehicle. Safety is very important, which requires that the quality of the products you provide must meet the quality standards it should have."

He said: "Low defect rate, high environmental tolerance and functional safety should be considered from the beginning of chip design. For example, to achieve a very low defect rate, chip testing must be very complete and cover a very wide range, so that the defect rate of the entire chip can be controlled at a very low level."

"From chip design to development, and even to subsequent production and manufacturing, all control is required. MediaTek is a fabless company and does not have its own chip production plant. We entrust the production to companies like TSMC and UMC. When producing automotive ICs, we require them to control production quality, because there will be some sigma deviation in production, which must be controlled within a certain range to ensure that the final product has a low enough defect rate. This is different from general commercial and consumer SoCs." said Xu Jingquan.

Make products reusable through platformization and standardization

In the era of technological change, car manufacturers are also actively innovating, and different functional presentations have also put forward more customized requirements for components. Customization often means rapid iteration and small quantities. In order to cope with the endless innovations of car manufacturers, component manufacturers need to find ways to increase product value.

The natural law of semiconductor devices is that large quantities can achieve considerable revenue and profits, and large quantities mean the need for standardization. Xu Jingquan pointed out: "In order to face different car manufacturers and different needs, it is very important to achieve platformization and standardization as much as possible."

Regarding platformization, he said: "When we started to define the chip, we considered making it a platform. Whether it is a low-end, mid-end, or mid-to-high-end product, the same chip can be used, and the hardware and PCB boards are as similar as possible. Chips of all levels are PIN to PIN compatible, and it feels like the same chip when put on, but the performance of the chip is different. For example, some chips have lower computing power, lower GPU, or lower memory. In this way, the scalability of the chip can be improved, and the same series of products can be used from low-end to mid-to-high-end, and the PCB and hardware can be unified."

Regarding standardization, he said: "Our approach is to try to make standard packages for the underlying hardware-related parts, including more commonly used OS, such as Linux and Android. For example, when a new version of Android is updated, the applications on Android and the upper architecture layer can be quickly applied to make the software work, because the underlying things have been standardized. In this way, when customers need to differentiate, they will not need to redevelop because of the conversion of the underlying, middle-layer software or hardware layer. This can reduce most of the redevelopment costs and reuse the software content that has been developed in the past."

Why does MediaTek want to enter the automotive market?

Xu Jingquan responded, "There is a lot of uncertainty in the consumer electronics field. The threshold of products is not high and the life cycle is short, which is not good for the company's long-term revenue. We need 10%-20% of our revenue to be long-term stable revenue, and automotive products meet this requirement."

Of course, he also admitted: "To this day, MediaTek is very unfamiliar to many domestic car manufacturers, because the entire production system of car manufacturers is very large and scattered. The current focus is to make car manufacturers feel that MediaTek is a committed and capable automotive chip supplier."

Automotive chips have a 4-5 year product promotion cycle, and MediaTek, which entered the market in 2015, has reached a critical period. "Currently, the revenue of this BU accounts for less than 5% of MediaTek's total revenue, but we have been recognized by more than 10 car manufacturers and more than 10 system manufacturers. The prototype of revenue growth in the next few years has already emerged, and revenue will be generated in succession." Xu Jingquan finally said.