Depth丨Domestic automotive-grade MCUs are emerging. How can local manufacturers break through to the mid-to-high end?

In recent years, domestic MCU manufacturers such as Xinwang Micro, Jiefa, and China Micro Semiconductor have also successfully passed verification, mass-produced automotive grade MCUs and supplied them to automobile manufacturers.

However, although the entry threshold for low-end automotive MCU products is relatively low, it is easy to enter the Red Sea market. Entering the mid-to-high-end automotive MCU field is the ultimate goal of the domestic MCU field.

Transformation is the only way to go, and breakthroughs are urgently needed in the mid- to high-end sectors

Compared with other fields of MCU, consumer-grade MCU products such as small household appliances iterate faster, have higher requirements for scene innovation, and have local and staged demand differentiation characteristics.

Compared with major foreign manufacturers, domestic MCU manufacturers can provide more timely and comprehensive local services.

Therefore, domestic MCUs should continue to deepen and stabilize the consumer market and balance the supply and demand relationship and the industrial chain foundation;

At the same time, we will promote the in-depth integration of the Internet of Things , artificial intelligence, etc. with traditional home appliances and consumer equipment, explore consumer-grade chips with higher requirements, higher digits, and stronger computing power , and lay the foundation for the realization of industrial control-level and automotive-level technologies, industries, and economies. Base.

Compared with consumer-grade MCUs, which are on thin ice, high-performance MCUs will become an important development area and incremental market in the domestic and even global chip market.

There is strong demand for domestic substitution of automotive-grade and industrial-grade MCU products, and there is still considerable room for improvement in the domestic market in the future.

Therefore, the development of domestic MCU manufacturers into higher-end industrial and automotive fields in downstream applications is an important choice to resist the current cyclicality, and it is also the only way for this newly growing local industry to change from weak to strong.

Facing the increasing market, domestic manufacturers want to "eat meat"

In the automotive MCU market, 8-bit and 32-bit are the mainstream. 8-bit has the advantages of ultra-low cost and simple design, and is mainly used for automotive fans, wiper sunroofs, etc.;

32-bit has an absolute advantage, and its available automotive scenarios include automotive power systems , smart cockpits, and body control. As the automotive electronic and electrical architecture shifts from distributed to centralized, 32-bit automotive MCUs will become the mainstream of market demand.

Data shows that total MCU sales are expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 6.7% from 2021 to 2026, reaching US$27.2 billion by 2026.

Global MCU sales will grow by 10% in 2022, reaching a record high of US$21.5 billion, with automotive MCUs growing faster than most other end-use categories.

In the entire automotive MCU market, more than 3/4 of automotive MCU sales come from 32-bit MCUs.

Data from IC Insight predicts that in the next five years, sales of 32-bit MCUs are expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 9.4%, reaching US$20 billion by 2026.

According to forecasts from Prismark, IC Insights, etc., the global industrial control market size is expected to reach US$260 billion by 2023, and global automotive MCU sales will reach US$8.1 billion.

Domestic MCU enters important control field of automotive electronics

At present, domestic MCU manufacturers are in their infancy. After this round of core shortage and localization, the platform company GigaDevice has reached a global share of 3% with the expansion of the consumer + industrial market;

In addition, companies such as Zhongying Electronics, Guoxin Technology, and Chipsea Technology have also achieved considerable development.

Domestic car-grade MCU chip manufacturers plan to start with body control first and slowly start to develop. In the future, they will position their products in the higher-performance MCU product fields required for the entire domain control, engine control and powertrain.

Therefore, manufacturers such as GigaDevice, Zhongying Electronics, Liyuan Information, and Lingdong Technology are also laying out their plans for automotive MCUs.

In some core control areas, automotive supply chain manufacturers are also gradually opening up and are willing to do some development evaluations based on the products of domestic automotive MCU manufacturers.

In the past two years, the shortage wave of major international automotive chip manufacturers has also forced Tier 1 manufacturers of traditional automotive ECUs to start thinking about how to localize the core ECU modules.

Manufacturers start from the body field and lay the foundation for localization

Although the initial threshold for certification by authoritative organizations is high, the investment is large, and it takes a long time, passing the AEC-Q100 quality reliability testing standard is a key step to enter the automotive electronics field.

Most domestic MCU manufacturers choose to start from the car body field, and are already emerging in these fields, such as BYD Semiconductor , Xinwangwei, CHIPWAYS, Jiefa, etc.

However, most of the domestic chip supply chain pre-installation [onboard] is stuck in AEC-Q100 testing and ISO 26262 certification. Especially different from body control, it has to go deep into more core control areas such as domain control and powertrain. Safety and reliability are the most important. Important requirement.

This requires the product to not only pass the AEC-Q100 reliability certification, which is the [basic threshold] for pre-installation on the car, but also the functional safety standard to reach ISO26262 ASIL B level and above.

Therefore, domestic chip manufacturers focusing on the 32-bit MCU track, such as Xinwang Micro, Qixin Micro, Xinchi Technology, Yuntu, Xihua Technology, etc., are all building product development and process system layouts that meet the ISO 26262 standard.

This will promote product safety and reliability to reach the highest standards and lay a solid foundation for the localization of automotive MCUs.

Xinwang Micro is about to mass-produce a new automotive-grade 32-bit MCU that meets ASIL-B grade—KF32A158/168;

Qixin Micro released the first automotive-grade MCU—FC4150F512 chip, which supports ASIL-B functional safety level, AEC-Q100 certification, and Grade 1 level;

Xinchi Technology has released the 32-bit high-performance and high-reliability automotive grade MCU E3 series. The automotive grade reliability standard reaches AEC-Q100 Grade 1 level, and the functional safety standard reaches ISO26262 ASIL D level;

Yuntu officially announced the official mass production of its second high-end automotive-grade MCU—M series product YTM32B1ME, which complies with AEC-Q100 and ISO26262 ASIL-B dual certification;

Xihua Technology has passed the highest level of ISO26262 ASIL-D automotive certification, and successfully launched the company's first 32-bit high-end MCU product, etc.

The integration of AI and MCU may unlock a huge market

There are more and more AI and edge computing scenarios such as smart homes and smart cities, and the requirements for computing are getting higher and higher. The distance between MCU and APU is constantly shrinking.

In recent years, ARM has successively released core microNPU Ethos U55, U65 and other series with computing power, which marks that the MCU market has begun to put forward stronger demand for AI accelerators.

Nowadays, adding AI accelerators to MCUs is gradually becoming popular. Using Tiny ML/Embedded ML to deploy algorithms on MCUs can also be easily and flexibly deployed on general-purpose MCUs with different architectures and resources according to different application scenarios.

China is the forefront of the development, application and consumption of artificial intelligence. Integrating AI into MCUs will become a common choice for domestic MCUs. The integration of AI and MCUs may unlock a huge market or become the cornerstone of the future Internet of Everything.

In compliance with the current domestic situation, the C-IDM model may become mainstream

The upstream is strong and the downstream is weak, which brings great supply and survival challenges to domestic Fabless manufacturers with small scale and weak bargaining power. It will become increasingly difficult for companies to maintain gross profit margins.

C- IDM (Commune-IDM) is a co-construction and sharing model. 10-15 individual companies jointly invest in the design, research and development, production, packaging and testing, marketing, etc. of semiconductors to form a community-based semiconductor production platform to provide end customers with High quality, high efficiency products.

This model allows IC design companies to have the exclusive production capacity and technical support of the manufacturing plant. At the same time, the IC manufacturing plant can receive market protection, realizing resource sharing, capability collaboration, and capital and risk sharing.

Solve supporting and cost problems, accelerate expansion, effectively reduce vicious competition, and provide a more efficient and faster platform suitable for the future development of domestic chips .

Therefore, after the industry is reshuffled, the IDM or C- IDM model will become the mainstream and is expected to replace the flourishing Fabless model.

This will further solve the problem of weak supporting capabilities among domestic industrial chains, break through a number of key technologies and products, and reach new heights on a broader stage.

end:

Local manufacturers are gradually making breakthroughs in mid-to-high-end markets such as industry and automobiles.

Domestic manufacturers are not in a narrow competitive relationship. In fact, they complement each other and promote the application and implementation of domestic chips in the automotive field.