How to break through the growth pole of the automotive MCU market? Xihua Technology's TMCU breaks through the barriers

The huge opportunities and changes brought by the "New Four Modernizations" to the automotive industry have also impacted the existing supply chain system. Domestic chip companies that were once blocked by high technical barriers have gradually broken through.

Among them, the key components of automobile electrification and intelligence , namely automotive MCU , have been continuously expanded into subdivided application fields by relying on the advantages of the local industrial chain , ushering in a period of rapid development with both volume and price rising. This has also led more and more domestic chip companies to accelerate their efforts to seize the MCU market after crossing the threshold of entry-level automotive products, and Xihua Technology is one of the representatives.

Opportunities of the “New Four Modernizations”: Local Automotive MCUs Break Through with Differentiation

China's new energy vehicle industry has accelerated over the past decade. At the same time, the transformation of automobile electrification and intelligence has driven the number of chips installed in each vehicle to rise.

According to public data, it generally takes 500-600 chips to manufacture a traditional car, while nearly 1,000 chips are needed for smart electric cars , and the number of chips installed in cars has doubled. Among them, MCU, as the core of internal calculation and processing of automotive electronic systems, is involved in engine control, transmission system , safety protection system, infotainment and intelligent driving systems, etc. It can be said to be one of the most used semiconductor devices in a single car , accounting for about 30%.

According to data from the China Economic Research Institute, the global automotive-grade MCU market size is expected to reach US$8.646 billion in 2023, a year-on-year increase of 4.34%. As the penetration rate of smart electric vehicles continues to grow in the future, the market growth rate of automotive-grade MCUs will further accelerate.

Looking at the global automotive MCU chip market, due to high industry barriers and the common challenges of strict standards, complex certification processes, and long cycles for automotive-grade chips , the market has been monopolized by overseas companies. Renesas Electronics , NXP , Microchip Technology, Infineon , STMicroelectronics , Texas Instruments and other leading companies account for more than 90% of the market share.

The reason why overseas MCU giants have such a high market share in the automotive market is closely related to the important position of Japanese, European and American automobile brands in the global automotive industry chain. Nowadays, the rise of China's automobile industry will also bring about the development of the entire domestic automobile industry chain. Local MCU manufacturers have also ushered in an opportunity to break through.

"Domestic automotive MCUs should have started to be made four or five years ago. The real development benefited from the chip shortage during the epidemic in the past two years, the promotion of localization, including the disruption of the supply chain at that time, policy promotion, geopolitical complications and many other factors. In addition, the rapid development of China's smart electric vehicles has greatly promoted the demand for the automotive industry to adopt domestic chips." Chen Xi, CEO of Xihua Technology, said at the Gasgoo 2024 Seventh Intelligent Driving and Human-Machine Co-driving Forum held recently.

According to data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, my country's new energy vehicle sales have increased from 1.367 million units in 2020 to 9.495 million units in 2023, with an annual compound growth rate of more than 90%, ranking first in the world for nine consecutive years. It is predicted that sales in 2024 are expected to exceed 11.5 million units, continuing to lead new changes in the global automotive industry.

Relying on the local industrial chain structure, domestic automotive MCU suppliers also have competitive advantages. Xihua Technology believes that domestic manufacturers have two major first-mover advantages. One is the ability to respond quickly, stationed on the front line, and provide corresponding solutions and service capabilities; the other is the differentiated characteristics brought about by innovation and integration.

Take Xihua Technology as an example. "We are on the front line and have very direct communication with car manufacturers and Tier 1s, so we can quickly understand their needs and make very bold and efficient decisions in adopting new technology routes. We respond much faster than international manufacturers to the application of innovative technologies. Although they have advantages in scale and vertical integration, in terms of differentiation, local manufacturers have obvious advantages in the 0~1 stage," Xihua Technology introduced.

In terms of innovation and integration, Xihua can further meet the various new demands of the industry and customers. In fact, under the current pressure of reducing costs and increasing efficiency in the entire automotive industry, automotive-grade MCU chip manufacturers are also under pressure. Differentiation is not only the key to competing with overseas giants, but also the way to survive in price wars.

Aiming at MCU+, the first automotive-grade TMCU is launched innovatively

“If you want to do your work well, you must first sharpen your tools.” From being blocked outside the technical threshold to crossing the threshold, local chip companies that have entered the market have gradually narrowed the gap with foreign manufacturers in the field of single-core automotive-grade MCUs, and even have little gap in basic capabilities with international giants.

Generally speaking, the industrial upgrading of single-core general-purpose MCU has two dimensions. One dimension is to make high-end automotive-grade MCUs with greater computing power , higher functions, higher security levels, and more advanced processes . This is an arms race process; the other dimension is to make MCU+, to innovate and differentiate. "Based on the general functions and cores of these MCUs, combined with specific application scenarios, whether it is an actuator or a sensor, SBC, LDO , AFE and other modules and circuits , or some software are superimposed to achieve different functions."

As a chip design company focusing on computing control and intelligent perception, Xihua Technology's current focus is to make differentiated products in the MCU+ field based on general-purpose MCUs. At the same time, it will invest more resources to expand the market and move towards a product route with greater computing power and higher specifications. At present, Xihua Technology has laid out touch, steering wheel HoD, headlights, motor drives , screens, batteries and other subdivisions in the MCU+ track.

Among them, for the touch function based on capacitive technology, Xihua Technology focused on introducing its product at the conference - the first domestic automotive-grade capacitive touch 32-bit MCU, namely "TMCU" (Touch MCU). This product is Xihua Technology's automotive-grade capacitive touch CVM012x series MCU, which is the first domestically produced automotive-grade single-chip solution that can achieve a HoD range of 4nF.

It is reported that this series of products inherits the Xihua CVM01 platform, integrates the ARM Cortex-M0+ core, has a main frequency of up to 80MHz, and has large-capacity Flash memory , SRAM memory and rich peripheral resources. Among them, the CVM0128 in this series can provide 224KB of large-capacity Flash, 16KB of SRAM, up to 43 GPIOs , and integrates up to 30ch channels of self-capacitance detection.

At the same time, the CVM012x series of automotive MCUs integrate high-performance capacitance detection IP and adopt Xihua's original patented capacitance detection technology. It has extremely high capacitance detection accuracy and self-mutual capacitance detection technology. It supports up to 4nF load capacitance, 30ch self-capacitance channel and 15 x 15ch mutual capacitance channel, and supports Active Shielding technology to better support touch waterproof performance.

In general, the CVM012x series supports multiple packages and multiple Flash configurations, has a rich product matrix, and meets the reliability AEC-Q100 Grade 2, and can support automotive applications of ISO 26262 ASIL-B functional safety standards.

According to the latest data from Gasgoo Automotive Research Institute, the number of L2-level (including L2+ and L2++) standard-equipped new energy passenger vehicles in the January-March 2024 period reached 924,000, with a market penetration rate of over 53.3%. Among them, the L2 penetration rate of models priced above RMB 200,000 has exceeded 89%.

The huge L2 market will generate huge demand for human-machine interaction and intelligent driving, which will undoubtedly bring huge market for automotive-grade capacitive touch MCUs.

The "flywheel strategy" is moving forward steadily, and the layout of automotive MCU continues to expand

It is worth mentioning that the application of capacitive touch technology has already begun in other industries, especially the touch screen era opened by the iPhone, which has brought about the large-scale use of capacitive touch technology. Today, many years later, the rapid development of smart electric vehicles, which are known as the greater consumer electronics terminal products, has further migrated capacitive touch technology from consumer electronics to the automotive electronics field to better realize human-computer interaction.