When will domestically produced cars and Chinese chips realize a "two-way rush"?

With two-way travel and deep binding, when can domestically produced cars and Chinese chips truly achieve an "effective marriage"?

At this 2023 World Intelligent Connected Vehicle Conference, people clearly felt that since the outbreak of the "core shortage", the research and development of my country's automotive chips has been put on the agenda. The industry is booming, and news about financing and new product releases are endless.

But this does not mean that domestic chips have complete substitution capabilities. On the contrary, as far as the current situation is concerned, it will take some time for the complete localization of automotive chips.

Crisis of Confidence? Car companies need a fixing pill

Putting aside the moral imperative to use domestic products, the "crisis of confidence" of auto companies in domestic auto chips has not been completely resolved.

In fact, we can’t blame the car companies for being “unloyal”. After all, automotive products are of great importance, and the stability of the supply chain and the safety of end users are the key considerations for car companies when selecting parts. Obviously, domestic chips do not have such strength.

There is only one reason: chip production is too difficult! Manufacturing is difficult and so is technology!

As the saying goes, "It's hard for a clever woman to make a meal without rice." The production process is the first problem in chip manufacturing. You must know that the difficulty in chip development lies in the accuracy requirements. At this time, a kind of equipment is needed-a photolithography machine.

At present, the 600 series photolithography machines produced by Shanghai Microelectronics Equipment Company represent the highest level in China, with a processing accuracy of only 90nm. The world's most advanced lithography machine, the extreme ultraviolet lithography machine (EUV) produced by the Dutch ASML company, can already meet the production of 5nm chips, and the price of one machine is as high as hundreds of millions of euros.

Even regardless of price, buying from foreign countries has now become almost impossible. Due to technological blockade, foreign countries are prohibited from selling advanced photolithography machines to China.

Relying on independent research and development alone, although Unisoc has successfully completed the tape-out test of 6nm chips, it is still far away from mass production. Huawei HiSilicon used to represent the top level in the country, but there was no news after the US sanctions.

It can be seen that the chip manufacturing process technology is firmly in the hands of foreigners, and they have also imposed a technological blockade on our country. If we want to achieve self-research and production of chips, the gap in our country is obvious.

In addition, high entry barriers, long product certification cycles, and large industry barriers are another problem for the autonomy of automotive-grade chips.

Automobiles have very high requirements on the working temperature, operational stability and anti-interference performance of chips and components.

For example, the requirements for automotive-grade MCU chips are very stringent. The International Automotive Electronics Association has launched three standards for automotive MCUs, namely: AEC-Q100 reliability standard; supply chain quality management standard IATF 16949 specification that complies with Zero Defect; ASIL functional safety assurance level that complies with ISO26262 standard .

At the same time, it takes at least 4-6 years for car-grade chips to be designed and certified. In addition, my country's car-grade chips started late and related technologies are monopolized by foreign countries. Local companies need long-term manpower and funds to develop chips. The investment and return period are also relatively long.

Under this circumstance, car companies are more willing to choose to cooperate with foreign chip companies that are more advanced and complete in terms of technology and supply chain, and the stability of cooperation is relatively high. As a result, it is very difficult for emerging chip companies to "get on board" and enter the market.

Staying together through thick and thin, the key lies in "Chinese core"

In fact, if you want to get the opportunity to "get on the bus", the most critical thing is "Chinese chips", that is, chip companies must use technology to improve the quality of domestic chips and establish an entire domestic chip supply ecosystem.

It's not easy to do this, but fortunately it's not impossible. Because the number of chips required for a new energy smart car is about 1,000-1,500, not all of the chips cannot be produced locally.

After analysis, industry experts believe that Chinese chip companies must overcome three levels of difficulty if they want to enter the market. They divide automotive chips into three parts: relatively easy to localize, relatively difficult to localize, and extremely difficult to localize.

For example, DC-DC, car charger MOSFETs, digital instrument memory chips, and various ADDA chips with low accuracy requirements are types of chips that are relatively easy to localize. Domestic chip companies can give priority to achieving breakthroughs in such chips.

In addition, automotive chips that are difficult to localize include motor controllers, battery management systems SBCs, central control hosts, various ECU-MCUs, electric drive assemblies, and motor controller IGBTs. Automotive chips that are extremely difficult to localize include smart city controllers. SoC, MPU, smart cockpit SoC, navigation multimedia SOC, MCU, etc.

The difficulties of these chips are concentrated in technology, and the cultivation of talents and technical research are particularly important. Chip companies must be able to concentrate on technology in order to gain something.

More importantly, technical services must meet actual needs and provide value to customers, so that they can be recognized by car companies and have the possibility of mass production.

If they want to build trust with car companies, chip companies need to develop products according to the needs of car companies, so that customers can "win" first, and then they can "win". Faced with opportunities for customer product upgrading and iteration, chip companies must always appear in front of customers as learners and climbers, and form a situation of good interaction and joint innovation with customers, so that they can truly gain a firm foothold in the market.

To catalyze acceleration, policies must also help

The efforts of chip companies themselves are essential, but some support from the industry and the country is also necessary.

It is necessary to formulate special industry support policies in the automotive-grade chip field, clarify development goals and key tasks; in terms of technical research, focus on promoting technological breakthroughs in production equipment such as photolithography machines and basic tools such as EDA software.

At the same time, it is necessary to increase industrial supervision, strengthen the top-level design of automotive information security supervision, and form a complete information security supervision system from the underlying chip to the entire vehicle system; improve the information security level requirements of automotive-grade chips and form an information security classification standard.

Currently, the automotive-grade chip manufacturing standard system is incomplete, some products lack application testing and certification platforms, and the product manufacturing process of the entire automotive-grade industry chain is weak. These are all stumbling blocks that hinder the localization of chips and the realization of "onboard".

For example, it is critical to improve car-grade chip testing and certification capabilities and establish corresponding testing standards and platforms, and requires the help of the industry and the country.

Because compared to the consumer electronics industry that focuses on performance, automotive chips pay more attention to safety and reliability. A chip product needs to go through stages such as design, tape-out production, packaging testing, identification and inspection, application verification, and supply assurance to become a qualified automotive-grade chip, which requires testing to various certification standards.

However, the current relevant domestic certification standards are not perfect, and the platforms available for testing are also very limited. Therefore, it is necessary for the industry and the country to coordinate the planning of the car-grade chip testing and certification system, with authoritative third-party testing institutions as the core, and jointly with car companies, chip companies, and Tier1 to build a national car-grade chip testing and verification platform and formulate national standards for testing and verification. , improve the testing process.

At the same time, it is also necessary to further promote the formulation of automotive-grade chip standards and carry out research on core semiconductor and component standards such as automotive-grade chips, automotive memories, and automotive sensors.

In addition, McKinsey predicts that the market size of automotive semiconductors will grow to US$150 billion in 2030. In other words, the car-grade chip track will become more and more "busy", and the state should also support outstanding Maxima companies to enter the chip track at any time, and encourage companies with innovation and industrial application scale to accelerate their development.

Establishing trust between car companies and domestic chip companies cannot be accomplished overnight. Policies must also act as a "regulator" for both parties in a timely manner to encourage chip companies to improve their independent innovation capabilities and increase their recognition by car companies, thereby realizing the development of domestic chips. Mass production and implementation.

In fact, the development of domestic chips is also a key part of stabilizing my country's automobile industry chain. Only by strengthening the chain can my country's new energy automobile industry achieve high-quality development and play a leading role in the global market. This requires concerted efforts from all parties in the market.