NXP chips are entering four major terminal markets with the joint efforts of software and hardware

Since its establishment, NXP has been a semiconductor company that has focused on fast-growing markets and strived for market share with excellent products. In recent years, with the new changes in the market, the company has set its sights on markets such as automobiles, industry and the Internet of Things, mobile and communication infrastructure. In their view, these promising markets will bring them rich returns.

Four major end markets targeted by NXP

Especially in the automotive-related market, due to the hot market of smart cars, autonomous driving and electric vehicles, NXP, which has a leading advantage in processors, networks and sensors, has seized the opportunity. This part of the business has also made an important contribution to their revenue. According to the company's financial report data, in 2019, the automotive-related chip business contributed 47% of the company's revenue. And the transformation and innovation that go with the trend are their confidence to embrace the market.

NXP's revenue distribution by end market

In a recent interview with Semiconductor Industry Watch and other media, Steve Owen, executive vice president of global sales and marketing at NXP, told reporters that NXP currently has layouts in the fields of intelligent driving cockpit, autonomous driving and assisted driving, and in-vehicle networks, and the company's partners have also expanded from traditional OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers to emerging car-making forces. NXP also provides corresponding cooperation methods to meet the different needs of customers.

Steve Owen, Executive Vice President of Global Sales and Marketing, NXP

From Steve Owen's introduction, we know that new car manufacturers tend to focus more on new energy vehicles, so NXP usually cooperates with them in the fields of battery management systems, new network electronic and electrical architectures, advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), etc.; NXP also provides different services to meet the needs of traditional OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers. In particular, based on the domain architecture, NXP has a lot of cooperation with traditional car manufacturers in the upgrade and innovation of automotive electronic and electrical architecture, and provides them with multi-faceted technical support.

"Another newer category is cooperation in software-driven and hardware-driven aspects. With the advent of the era of connected vehicles, the ability to download and update cars while on the road is also crucial. For us, the system-level solutions we provide are always very attractive. From car dashboards to in-vehicle networks, body control, battery management, gateways, etc., we are working closely with many manufacturers." Steve Owen added.

The reason why NXP can achieve multi-dimensional cooperation with different automotive customers is that its extensive high-quality product line layout is their important reliance.

For example, in terms of automotive processors, NXP's S32 processor family provides a unified architecture that includes high-performance MCUs and MPUs, as well as accelerators and interfaces for specific applications, and can also provide the same software environment across application platforms. In this software development environment, developers can share expensive R&D work to respond more quickly to changing vehicle architectures and stringent product time-to-market requirements. The application platform can provide automotive-grade quality and reliability, as well as ASIL D functional safety performance in multiple application areas of the vehicle, and can solve the connectivity and security challenges facing automobiles today and in the future.

NXP S32G Automotive Network Processor

In January this year, NXP announced the launch of the new S32G vehicle network processor. This processor marks an important turning point in the design and implementation of the entire vehicle architecture. As the latest product in NXP's S32 processor series, the S32G processor can help the automotive industry move to a high-performance, domain-based vehicle architecture, reduce software complexity, and improve encryption security and functional safety. Currently, this S32G has been adopted by major OEMs around the world and plays an important role in service-oriented gateways, helping OEMs transform from automakers to vehicle data-driven service providers, thereby expanding business opportunities.

In June this year, NXP Semiconductors announced a partnership with TSMC to use the latter's 5nm technology to build NXP's next-generation high-performance automotive platform. According to reports, after cooperating with TSMC, the company will promote the establishment of a more scalable architecture to further simplify and achieve the improvement of software performance required for future cars. With TSMC's process, NXP can also meet the needs of advanced vehicle architecture in terms of high-level integration, safety management, power management and computing power.

In addition, NXP's investment in 77GHz millimeter-wave radar is another magic weapon for them to conquer the automotive market. As a leader in radar processor technology and market, NXP provides customers with a scalable product line. For safety-critical applications such as collision avoidance, lane change assistance, and automatic emergency braking, longer monitoring distances and higher resolution and accuracy can be achieved.

By cooperating with top partners in China's automotive electronics industry, NXP is continuously consolidating its product and solution portfolio in the field of radar sensors and processors and promoting the implementation of large-scale commercialization. Steve Owen told reporters that NXP signed an investment and strategic cooperation agreement with Falcon Eye Electronic Technology Co., Ltd. in April last year. The two parties will provide customers with reference design solutions based on NXP radar products and system-level technical support and services, which will help them promote radar solutions to the market in a modular way.

In the communication with Steve, he also emphasized that power management will become an important direction for them to focus on in the automotive field. He pointed out that in the application scenarios of new energy, China's vehicle electrification and the use of green energy have penetrated from traditional passenger cars to commercial vehicles. Therefore, on top of traditional computing power, vehicle networks, and electronic and electrical architectures, NXP has also promoted more efficient and balanced power management solutions to the Chinese market. In his view, as the current automotive network architecture undergoes evolution, the way vehicles are driven has also changed and is particularly important.

In the field of intelligent networking, NXP has also achieved many results with its partners. They make full use of the data information generated in the car by connecting the car and the data in the car. Based on cloud services and service-based data analysis, NXP is currently cooperating with BAIC BluePark Information to jointly develop cloud and data management services for end consumers and companies through a secure network architecture. These services will be extended to other car manufacturers to provide them with a wide range of services for information security and network security for autonomous driving and assisted driving.

Finally, in the field of electronic cockpit applications, in addition to providing smart cockpit processors, amplifiers, video and audio products, NXP has also seen new trends such as smart car keys and smart entry. For this reason, they are now promoting UWB technology as a new and secure solution for interconnection with mobile phones.

"This is a security technology that connects a mobile phone to a car. This technology can better protect the security of the mobile phone as a virtual key and smart entry, and enter the future smart service and smart car key solutions. It provides a connection between mobile business and automotive business." Steve said.

The above are only some of the products that NXP has launched for the automotive market, but they are enough to prove NXP's focus and strength in this field. We can also see from here that they pay attention to and focus on multiple fields such as autonomous driving, automotive electrification, smart connectivity and safety. This is indeed the trend of market development.

Cost Per Vehicle of Automotive Electronics and Semiconductors

According to a report by Deloitte, the popularity of safety-related electronic systems in the automotive industry has exploded. They pointed out that by 2022, the cost of automotive semiconductor components will reach $600 per car. The surge in demand for automotive semiconductor equipment such as microcontroller units, sensors and memory will benefit automotive semiconductor suppliers. In the next decade, the development of automation, electrification, digital connectivity and security systems will drive the growth of semiconductor components in automotive electronic equipment and subsystems. Among them, the application field of advanced driver assistance systems is expected to grow the fastest, which has also attracted other manufacturers to cross-border into this field.

When asked how to deal with the competition from these new competitors, Steve told reporters: "No matter which industry you are in, competition always exists, and competition is healthy. The emergence of competitors actually spurs NXP to think about new products, how future technologies can help customers, market needs, and which features customers will find particularly attractive. Therefore, for chips, we not only consider the performance of a single product, but we hope to provide a complete product portfolio that can be applied to as many vehicles as possible."

Steve emphasized that competition is not just about the performance of a chip or a product, but more like a comprehensive competition of strength. In the automotive industry, car manufacturing is not only about performance improvement, but also involves the upgrade of network electronic and electrical architecture, which is based on the realization of comprehensive solutions and the integrity of the industrial chain. "One chip cannot complete a solution. Only by combining the entire supporting development tool chain based on basic software, application software, and cloud services in the industrial chain can it be the foundation for success in the true sense." Steve finally said.