Good medicine or poisonous wine? Full analysis of self-developed chips by car companies: three major categories, four challenges

The wave of technology is surging, and small chips have never received such attention as they do today. 

Almost all hard technology products are inseparable from excellent chip support.

Looking at the development of high-end chips in recent years, Moore's Law is still in effect, and the traditional supply chain model is also undergoing many challenges and reconstruction: 

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• The Apple MacBook has been replaced with self-developed M series chips, which greatly enhances its product capabilities, and the commercial power of software and hardware integration has become increasingly apparent;

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• Due to the sanctions, Huawei was not only unable to obtain external advanced manufacturing capabilities, but also restricted the purchase of third-party high-end chips. CBG's business suffered a heavy blow. Fortunately, the recent release of Kirin 9000S has given us a glimmer of hope in replacing the domestic chip supply chain;

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• The self-developed FSD chip supports Tesla to continue to lead the intelligent driving track, and the product is both well received and popular;

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• BYD has long deployed self-research in the fields of batteries, MCUs and power semiconductors, laying an important foundation for its position in the new energy market in China and even the world;

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• Zheku, a subsidiary of OPPO, officially announced its disbandment after investing heavily in self-developed chips for nearly 4 years. It failed halfway, which is sad;

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• Momenta, which has been focusing on the development of intelligent driving algorithms, has begun to enter the self-developed automotive AI chip track, following the full-stack model of Horizon's "chip + algorithm".

Various industry practices have stimulated the nerves of car companies, the end users who use the largest number of chips, and forced them to re-examine their in-vehicle chip strategies and supply models.

Solving the chip "stuck" problem inherently implies a heroic complex for Chinese car people. 

In recent years, there have been many entrants into the research and development of automotive chips, and the core shortage experience during the epidemic has further catalyzed this trend. Car companies have enough motivation to strengthen their control over chip supply. 

At present, competition between China and the United States continues to intensify, and the "buy rather than build" mentality of local car companies is becoming popular. The layout of chips has spilled over to levels other than technology, and has even become an important support point for the company's strategic direction. 

1. Four major models of self-developed chips by car companies

Cars are the single civilian product that uses the largest amount of chips, covering a wide range of chip categories. 

New energy smart cars have pushed the core content to a new level, from power semiconductors to MCU chips, from sensor chips to cockpit SoCs, from memory chips to communication chips, from ECUs with small computing power to AI chips with large computing power, etc. , basically all types of chips can be found in cars. 

At present, car companies are laying out the automotive chip track and are taking frequent actions. Especially driven by the wave of new energy and smart driving, the automotive chip layout process has entered a period of acceleration. 

The way each car company lays out chips is not exactly the same. Currently, multiple models coexist, and the roles and advantages played by car companies in each model are also different: 

The first model is to set up a self-research team within the car company to do chip design and R&D in person, which requires a large investment and requires very high talent density. 

Successful representatives of this model are BYD and Tesla. 

BYD has the longest history of self-developed chips and is involved in many chip categories. 

BYD Microelectronics Company, the predecessor of BYD Semiconductor, was established in 2004. It is engaged in the research and development and production of power semiconductors, intelligent control MCUs, intelligent sensors and optoelectronic semiconductors. It adheres to the IDM model, especially in the field of IGBT, and has mastered core technologies. It has become China's largest IGBT manufacturer. 

Tesla’s self-research strategy is different from that of BYD. It chose to start with smart driving domain control AI chips. Tesla’s self-developed FSD chip, which has invested heavily in self-development, is an extremely important piece of the puzzle for Autopilot. The plan is very forward-looking and will be officially launched in 2019. And as new cars are launched, the performance will continue to be enhanced through OTA. 

This year, the second generation FSD chip (HW4.0) is also officially launched. 

Wei Xiaoli, a representative of new forces, is also developing his own chips in a low-key manner, with varying progress. Some clues can be found from recent public reports. 

NIO is the one that has invested the most among the new forces. It established a self-developed chip team as early as the second half of 2020. It currently has about 800 people and is mainly engaged in the research and development of chips such as smart driving and sensors. This team is part of the Intelligent Hardware Department. 

At the recent NIO Innovation and Technology Day, Li Bin introduced the first self-developed chip product - LiDAR main control chip "Yang Jian", which has the characteristics of high integration, low energy consumption, and strong performance. Eagle LiDAR cooperates to replace the original FPGA and ADC and other valuable third-party chips, claiming that it will save NIO hundreds of yuan in BoM costs for each vehicle. 

It is also reported that NIO is developing its own cockpit chip using 7nm process and manufactured by Samsung. There is reason to believe that the new cockpit chip will have more innovative linkages with the newly released NIO mobile phone. 

Xiaopeng began to deploy self-developed chips in China and the United States in 2020, with product goals targeting Tesla FSD chips. At its peak, the number of employees reached 200, but Wu Xinzhou's departure has added variables to self-developed chips, and sales It’s not as good as expected, and the team is also downsizing this year. 

Ideal is considered to be a more conservative company among the new forces. It is relatively cautious and built its chip team significantly later than Weilai and Xiaopeng. At present, Ideal's self-developed chip team has less than a hundred people, mainly focusing on the NPU architecture design of smart driving chips. 

Traditional self-owned brand car companies are also ready to make moves, but they are mainly starting from power semiconductors that are widely used in vehicles and are slightly less difficult to develop. 

Great Wall Motors established Innosilicon Semiconductor in 2022 to mainly develop IGBTs, including chips in areas such as smart driving and smart cockpits. 

Geely Automobile incubated and established Jingneng Microelectronics in the same year to create automotive-grade IGBT products. In March 2023, it announced that it had successfully tape-out. 

The second is to establish a new company through a joint venture, combining strong forces and complementing each other's advantages. 

This model is currently relatively popular and is conducive to taking advantage of the OEM's strong capital and end-customer demand. The joint venture partner is usually a chip manufacturer. 

Volkswagen is the largest player in this type of model. In 2022, the news of the joint venture between Volkswagen's CARIAD and Horizon has detonated the smart driving industry. Volkswagen invested 2.4 billion euros and held 60% of the shares of the joint venture. This shows its determination to make up for the shortcomings in intelligence. . 

According to reports from PowerOn, a subsidiary of 36Kr, Horizon has transferred hundreds of people from its internal software algorithm team to the new joint venture, with the scale reaching 300 people. Horizon co-founder Huang Chang serves as the CTO of the joint venture. The genes of both parties are highly complementary. Let us wait and see whether a magical chemical reaction can occur. 

Similar to the Volkswagen CARIAD-Horizon cooperation model, Changan and Horizon jointly established Changxian Intelligence to engage in the advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) business, with each party holding 45% of the shares. 

In addition, Changan's Deep Blue Automobile formed a joint venture "Chongqing Anda Semiconductor Co., Ltd." with Star Semiconductor in June this year. 

China FAW's SiC project with the Yima Semiconductor joint venture will be put into production in 2021, with an annual output of 300,000 modules. 

Dongfeng cooperated with Zhuzhou CRRC Times on IGBT power modules in 2018. In 2019, it jointly established Zhixin Semiconductor Company with CRRC Times to independently develop, manufacture and sell power semiconductor modules. This is the first time that China has completed the development and manufacturing of automotive power semiconductors. One of only three units. 

SAIC chose to form a joint venture with Infineon to establish SAIC Infineon Automotive Power Semiconductor (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. to engage in the research and development and manufacturing of automotive IGBT modules. GAC has also established a joint venture with CRRC Times to establish Qinglan Semiconductor, which also targets IGBT. 

Ideal is cooperating with domestic Sanan Semiconductor this year to establish a power semiconductor production line. Beijing Chehejia accounts for 70% of the shares and Hunan Sanan Semiconductor accounts for 30%. They will lay out SiC power semiconductors through joint ventures. 

In 2021, Geely established a joint venture with Guangdong Xin Yueneng Semiconductor Co., Ltd. with Xin Juneng Semiconductor, Xinhe Technology and others to manufacture and develop SiC chips in the automotive and industrial control fields. 

In the field of in-vehicle smart chips, Geely's affiliated company Yikatong established a joint venture with ARM China in 2019, Xinqing Technology, and mass-produced the 7nm car-grade smart cockpit chip "Longying One" at the end of last year. The number was first installed on the newly launched Lynk & Co 08 in September.