The number of cameras and screen rolls, the intelligentization of automobiles has brought the SerDes chip to the forefront

Dramatic changes in the automotive industry are happening in every corner.

This year's Beijing Auto Show, from the stunning products to the diverse marketing methods, has set off a peak in the wave of automotive intelligence .

A new field that few people paid attention to also appeared at the auto show: in-vehicle communication chips (SerDes chips).

The number of cameras and screens in cars is visibly increasing, and even games are being installed in cars.

At this time, a large amount of data requires high-speed, high- bandwidth transmission, and high-performance vehicle-mounted SerDes chips are core components.

One of them is to satisfy the imagination space of automobile intelligent iteration.

Among the local high-performance automotive communication chip companies that have emerged in recent years, Renxin Technology has produced the world's highest-speed (16G bps ) automotive SerDes chip, which is expected to go into mass production in the second quarter of this year.

At the auto show, Renxin Technology launched the "Smart Driving 5V Super Vision Solution" developed with Sony Semiconductor . It uses 5 cameras to complete the full field of view of the vehicle's smart driving environment and is equipped with Renxin Technology's high-performance vehicle-mounted SerDes chip.

With improved performance, how can we meet the urgent demand of the automotive industry to "reduce costs and increase efficiency"? More importantly, in the winner-takes-all chip field, how can a startup make differentiated automotive SerDes chip products and gain a place in the market?

The battle for domestic replacement of automotive SerDes chips may also be one of the most competitive segments in the field of automotive intelligence. The market window period is extremely short and the outcome will be clear within two to three years.

An ambitious automotive SerDes chip company may have to fight a tough battle to succeed.

01. Driven by the demand for high-end intelligent driving, in-vehicle communication SerDes chips are popular

"Intelligence" is the word that appears most frequently in Chinese cars recently.

At the Beijing Auto Show, the Zhijie S7 equipped with the Hongmeng car-machine system was called "the first smart car for young people" by Yu Chengdong.

On April 23, Lei Jun said on social media, "From the first day of car manufacturing, I believed that intelligent driving is the watershed between the entire new forces in car manufacturing and traditional car manufacturing."

As urban NOA competition enters a white-hot stage, the demand for environmental perception data and the high standards pursued by major automobile brands for user driving experience and safety have led to a new field becoming a battlefield: high-speed in-vehicle communication SerDes chips.

The computing power of automobile chips is constantly improving, which has stimulated higher requirements for storage and transmission chips, and transmission chips are developing towards high speed and high bandwidth.

SerDes ( Serializer / Deserializer ) is a communication technology.

The in-vehicle communication SerDes chip, with its high speed and low latency, has become the optimal solution for real-time transmission of high-bandwidth data.

Currently, from vehicle cameras to vehicle displays , ADAS domain controllers , cockpit domain controllers, etc., vehicle communication SerDes chips are used to achieve video signal and real-time data transmission .

There is a new demand for automotive SerDes chips, and players who make high-speed products are eager to try.

Renxin Technology, which focuses on in-vehicle communication chips, released its first 16Gbps high-performance in-vehicle SerDes chip product R-LinC, which supports a transmission rate of 16Gbps-1.6Gbps, a transmission distance of 15 meters, and an insertion loss compensation capability of more than 30dB. Its rate and process are currently 1-2 generations ahead of its peers.

16Gbps, this is the current transmission rate ceiling of automotive SerDes chips.

In the field of automotive SerDes chips, the two giant companies Texas Instruments (TI) and Maxim Semiconductor have long occupied an absolute dominant position, and local companies have found it difficult to intervene. The product speeds of the two leading companies have reached 12Gbps and 13Gbps.

As an emerging market, high-speed automotive SerDes chips have a chance to gain a foothold from the perspective of start-ups only if their speed is higher than that of the top two companies and they create differentiated products to meet new market demands.

Starting from high-speed, we have the potential to defeat low-speed with high-speed in technology. If we only focus on low-speed scenarios, we may lose some markets. In addition, products for high-speed scenarios can also be backward compatible.

Renxin Technology's R-LinC can support transmission rates of 16Gbps-1.6Gbps, providing customers with more choices.

The wave of automotive intelligence is surging, and the prospects of the automotive SerDes chip track have a certain degree of certainty.

In any market competition, track selection is one aspect and ability is another.

The amount of data collected by intelligent driving is increasing, which puts higher requirements on the bandwidth of communication interfaces . The realization of high-speed products with greater difficulty has opened up a broad boundary for intelligent applications.

Renxin R-LinC serialization and deserialization chip has a high-speed channel of up to 16Gbps/lane, which can provide communication support for 17MP camera modules.

The difference loss is used to measure the quality of signal transmission. The farther the data is transmitted, the greater the loss. The stronger the compensation ability, the higher the signal quality.

Renxin R-LinC has an insertion loss compensation capability of up to 30dB+, which is ahead of the industry's 20dB+.

With powerful loss compensation capabilities, there will be no problem even if low-cost wiring harnesses or plug-ins with slightly inferior specifications are used, and technical compensation can be performed.

In addition, the real-time adaptive equalization algorithm independently developed by Renxin Technology can achieve microsecond level, which is an order of magnitude higher than the millisecond level of existing products on the market. This ensures the stability of high-bandwidth and high-speed transmission.

From the perspective of chip application scenarios, the higher the product speed, the higher the unit price may be.

So, why do OEMs pay for high-performance automotive SerDes chip products?

02. How to solve the problem of cost and performance and integrate automotive SerDes chips?

The focus of this year's Beijing Auto Show, Xiaomi SU7, is equipped with 11 high-definition cameras, 1 laser radar , 3 millimeter-wave radars , and 12 ultrasonic radars. The whole vehicle uses a total of 27 environmental perception sensors .

From perception, decision-making and planning to intelligent control, perception is the foundation of intelligent driving. The development of ADAS and ADS (advanced intelligent driving) and the diversified application requirements have promoted the iteration of the total number of sensors and the bandwidth required for data transmission.

For a long period of time, core sensors such as cameras have evolved towards high quantity and high pixels.

In terms of the number of cameras, the average number of on-board cameras currently exceeds 8, while the mainstream ADAS solution requires 11.

In terms of camera pixels, the 8-megapixel car camera has been widely popularized since the first mass production of Ideal ONE 2021 in the world. Now, 15-megapixel and 17-megapixel cameras are also entering the market.

Taking the high-speed, lossless and delay-free transmission requirements of an 8-megapixel camera as an example, based on 24-bit RGB three-color and 30 frames of the camera, the amount of data generated by the camera per second is 5.7 5G bps bandwidth.

This brings a dilemma: the number of sensors on the car is increasing, and the cost is also increasing. The cost increase is not conducive to the implementation of intelligent products.

Faced with the requirements for high-speed, delay-free, and lossless transmission of vehicle camera data, how can vehicle SerDes chips strike a balance between performance and cost?

Sensor integration has become an inevitable trend.

By subtracting from the structure, reducing wiring harnesses and optimizing the overall solution, cost reduction and efficiency improvement can be achieved.

At this auto show, Renxin Technology launched the "Intelligent Driving 5V Super Vision Solution" developed with Sony. Five cameras complete the full field of view coverage of the vehicle's intelligent driving environment.

The "Smart Driving 5V Super Vision Solution" consists of a front-view ultra-high-definition camera based on Sony's 17-megapixel image sensor and four super fisheye cameras based on Sony's 8-megapixel pixels.

After integration, the number of cameras will be reduced and the number of SerDes chips will also be reduced.

The vehicle-mounted video signal transmission system usually consists of several serializers (serial chips) and de-serializers (de-serialization chips).

The solution is equipped with 5 Renxin 16Gbps high-speed serial addition chips and 1 highly integrated 6-in-1 deserialization chip.

Thanks to the 16Gbps high bandwidth, using one Renxin R-LinC serial chip and a single wire harness can transmit up to 17 million pixel camera data to the controller behind.