Domestic high-end automotive intelligent driving chips spark a war of words

Compared with 7nm, TSMC's 5nm process has a 20% increase in processing speed and 40% reduction in power consumption. Migrating to 5nm will help automakers differentiate their cars through enhanced functionality, simplify the increasingly complex architectural challenges of cars, and easily deploy powerful computing systems. Therefore, the value of the 5nm process for automotive chips is highlighted. Under such market demand, TSMC has also begun to play "hunger marketing".

In July 2023, Paul de Bot, general manager of TSMC Europe, said at the 27th Automotive Electronics Conference held in Germany that the automotive industry has long been considered a technological laggard, focusing only on mature processes, but in fact, some automotive chip suppliers have started using 5nm process technology since 2022, which is only two years away from the official mass production of 5nm.

Due to the average yield of Samsung's 5nm process , TSMC is almost the only wafer foundry that can mass-produce 5nm process chips . As a result, the company's production capacity is in short supply. TSMC said that it is impossible to reserve idle production capacity for the automotive industry, and automotive chips need to accelerate the transition to advanced processes. Paul de Bot believes that it is absolutely necessary for automakers to plan and control the number of orders in a forward-looking manner, and the transition of some automotive chips from the original mature process nodes to advanced processes is also an important means to ensure supply.

Compared with consumer electronics and server applications, the automotive chip foundry market accounts for a smaller proportion (less than 10%), but the unit price is higher, which is an extremely profitable market. From TSMC's perspective, during the COVID-19 pandemic, TSMC's annual automotive chip business has grown by about 40%, and the foundry leader hopes to retain and expand this customer base in the future, especially for advanced processes.

03. Smart cockpit chips also require 5nm

The above are all smart driving chips, which are more computing-oriented. Another major category is smart cockpit chips, which are more control-oriented and have an increasingly urgent demand for advanced processes. Smart cockpits have multiple functional blocks, mainly including high-definition display, instrumentation, active safety alarm, real-time navigation, online infotainment, emergency rescue, Internet of Vehicles , and human- computer interaction systems ( speech recognition , gesture recognition). Their main function is to improve the driver and passenger experience by changing the human-computer interaction method.

At this time, the importance of artificial intelligence (AI) technology has become prominent, and the performance requirements for related chips have also increased. The typical representative of smart cockpit chips is the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8155 that we often hear about, and the updated 8295 chip. At the end of 2021, Qualcomm released the Snapdragon 8295 using a 5nm process. Compared with the 8TOPS computing power of the previous generation 8155 (7nm process), the computing power of the 8255 reaches 30TOPS, and the 3D rendering capability has increased by 3 times. It has added integrated electronic rearview mirrors, machine learning , passenger monitoring and information security functions. One chip can drive 11 screens.

In addition to the cockpit chip, the core SoC of Qualcomm's Snapdragon Ride smart driving platform is also built on a 5nm process and integrates core components such as high-performance CPU, GPU and AI engine, with a maximum computing power of 700TOPS. However, compared with several other smart driving chip manufacturers (Nvidia, Intel's Mobileye, Tesla), Qualcomm's smart driving chip presence is relatively weak. In addition to Qualcomm and other industry giants, Chinese local SoC companies are also moving towards advanced process smart cockpit chips, and have now progressed to 7nm. If there were not so many international trade restrictions, there would definitely be 5nm processes.

At present, Horizon Robotics, Heiyi Ma Intelligent, Xinchi Technology , and Xinjing Technology have all released related products. Among them, the "Dragon Eagle No. 1" self-developed by CorePower Technology, as the first domestic automotive-grade 7nm chip, has been installed on the car. Heizhima Intelligent has launched the first self-developed 7nm chip Wudang C1200. Horizon Robotics' Journey 6 series chips also use 7nm process technology. The flagship chip has a single computing power of 560TOPS. It will be mass-produced in 2024. By the time Journey 7 or Journey 8 is mass-produced, it is expected that the process technology will be further improved.

04. Automotive chips are moving towards 3nm process

As the level of automobile intelligence increases, related chips are also moving towards more advanced process technology. NVIDIA's latest smart driving chip DRIVE Thor has a computing power of 2000 TOPS and Hopper architecture; it will adopt a 4nm process technology and go into production in 2025. NVIDIA said that Chinese auto brands such as BYD , Aion, Xiaopeng, Ideal, and Zeekr will adopt DRIVE Thor. Tesla is more radical and is ready to launch a 3nm process chip foundry plan. It will continue to enhance the speed and power consumption performance based on TSMC N3E and plans to go into production in 2024, but whether it can obtain production capacity is still in doubt.

After seeing Qualcomm's success in the field of smart cockpit applications, MediaTek could no longer sit still and began to enter the automotive chip market , especially the smart cockpit, and planned to launch the "Dimensity Car Platform", which will be built using a 3nm process.