The localization rate is less than 5%! What are the latest breakthroughs in domestic 7nm cockpit chips?

In the first half of 2024, the Chinese auto market showed a strong recovery. Among the top ten sales, Chinese brands occupied six seats. BYD, Volkswagen, Chery, Geely and Changan ranked in the top five respectively. Under the background of the "new four modernizations" of automobiles, "enhancing user experience" and "high interactivity" have become the key growth points for the development of smart cockpits.

In June, Great Wall Motors released a new generation of smart cockpit system Coffee OS3, which uses Qualcomm 8295 chip. The CPU computing power is 2.1 times higher than the previous generation system, and the GPU computing power is 2.8 times higher; and in the first half of the year, BYD Han Honor Edition sold well. This model is equipped with the advanced version of the smart cockpit-DiLink 100, equipped with a 6nm process cockpit chip, and equipped with a new UI design, which makes the control smoother. With the increase in consumer demand for automotive intelligence and the continuous investment of automakers in intelligent technology, the cockpit domain control market has developed rapidly.

What is the penetration rate of smart cockpits of new energy vehicles in China in the first half of 2024? What changes have occurred in the main players and market share of automotive cockpit chips? In addition to Qualcomm, AMD and Renesas, what are the latest ranking changes of local manufacturers in China's cockpit chip market? Why has the 7nm cockpit chip become a breakthrough for mainstream domestic manufacturers? This article conducts a detailed analysis.

The scale of China's automotive semiconductor market accounts for 30% of the world, and the localization rate of smart cockpit chips needs to be improved urgently.

According to data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers and Gasgoo Automotive Research Institute, the scale of China's automotive semiconductor market is about US$23 billion, and the average semiconductor content per car is about US$794. The scale of China's automotive semiconductor market accounts for more than 30% of the world, and is growing at an annual compound growth rate of more than 20%.

Recently, at the 2024 Global New Energy Smart Car Innovation Conference, Sun Dong, vice president of strategic business development of CoreEngine Technology, shared the localization rate data of the automotive-grade chip market in 2023, among which the localization rate of computing and control chips is less than 1%, the localization rate of communication chips is less than 3%, the localization rate of power semiconductors and memory chips reaches 8%, and the localization rate of sensor chips reaches 4%.

Figure 1: Localization rate of automotive chips Photographed by an electronics enthusiast

At this year's Beijing Auto Show, the penetration rate of smart cockpits in new cars reached 21%. In the standard configuration of multi-screen smart cockpits, Qualcomm's 8155 and 8295 cockpit chips are the main ones. In the field of high-level autonomous driving, L2+ and L3 autonomous driving chips are mainly Nvidia's Orin series. According to data from Zos Automotive Research, in the Chinese passenger car market in 2023, the market coverage rate of domestic cockpit SoCs is only about 4.8%. With the promotion of policies and the maturity of technology, the market penetration rate of domestic cockpit SoCs is expected to further increase, and it is expected to reach 25% by 2030.

Sun Dong said that global automotive electronics is in a period of explosive growth. In 2025, the global automotive electronics semiconductor market size will reach US$70.9 billion. New demands will bring new changes. Smart cockpit chips and autonomous driving & AI chips are both in a period of market explosion.

Coincidentally, Gasgoo Automotive Research Institute recently released the latest data on China's automotive smart cockpit chip market from January to May 2024. As can be seen from the list, Qualcomm, AMD, and Renesas cockpit chips rank in the top three in terms of installed capacity, but we see that domestic suppliers are rising rapidly. Huawei, Core Engine Technology, and CoreDrive Technology have entered the top ten list and demonstrated strong market competitiveness.

The installed capacity ranking of the Geshi cockpit domain control chip brand reveals that Qualcomm topped the list with 1,215,683 installed units and a market share of 64.1%. AMD followed closely with 223,329 installed units, accounting for 11.8% of the market share, while Renesas Electronics ranked third with 167,092 installed units and a market share of 8.8%.

It is worth noting that domestic chip brands have emerged on the list, and domestic chip brands such as Huawei and Core Engine Technology have also performed well. Huawei ranked fourth with 67,414 installed units and a market share of 3.6%, showing the strong growth momentum of domestic chips in the cockpit domain control chip market. CoreEngine Technology ranked fifth with 61,974 chips installed and a market share of 3.3%, further proving the competitiveness of domestic chips in the market. CoreDrive Technology ranked eighth with 25,248 chips installed and a market share of 1.3%.

On par with Qualcomm 8155, CoreEngine's "7nm cockpit chip" Dragon Eagle No. 1 has doubled its mass production and shipments.

"With the acceleration of automotive chip computing power upgrades and the continuous improvement of performance requirements, advanced processes have become necessary. The 7nm node process has become the mainstream process node for automotive high-computing chips in terms of production capacity, practical applications, and technical support, and has obvious advantages in computing power, power consumption, response speed, and integration." Sun Dong, vice president of strategic business development at CoreEngine Technology, told enthusiast reporters.

Dragon Eagle No. 1 uses a 7nm process technology, integrates 87 layers of circuits, has 8.8 billion transistors, and has a chip area of ​​only 83 square millimeters. It is equipped with an 8-core CPU (the large core is Cortex-A76), the CPU computing power can reach 90-100K DMIPS, a 14-core GPU, the GPU computing power is 900+GFLOPS, and a self-developed programmable NPU core, the NPU computing power reaches 8TOPS, supports LPDDR5-6400 memory, and provides 51.2GB/s memory bandwidth.

Sun Dong pointed out that the actual running score of this chip reached 507920 points, which is significantly better than the score of 444262 of the Snapdragon 8155 car machine. The excellent performance also laid a good foundation for the smoothness of the car machine.

Figure 2: Cockpit chip SE1000, photographed by an electronics enthusiast

The CPU and GPU computing power of Longying No. 1 can smoothly support its industry-first 92-inch giant sky-screen HUD with a resolution of 2K, real-time navigation covering three lanes, and support for mobile phone cross-terminal viewing and gaming. If two "Longying No. 1" are used, its 16TOPS can support L0-L2 assisted driving functions including APA assisted parking, RPA remote parking and other full-scene parking.

"The Dragon Eagle No. 1 chip started tape-out at the end of 2021. After testing in 2022, the chip met the design requirements. In December 2022, the Dragon Eagle No. 1 began mass production. In 2023, 7-8 new energy vehicles will be equipped with this chip. In 2023, the first year of mass production, 200,000 pieces of Dragon Eagle No. 1 will be shipped. The process from mass production, vehicle certification to capacity ramp-up is very fast." Sun Dong said, "Core Engine Technology's SE system intelligent cockpit multimedia chip has been industrialized, and it is expected to reach 800,000 to 1 million pieces this year, achieving a breakthrough in high-end intelligent cockpit SoC chips."

Core Drive Technology launches X9CC, with performance parameters comparable to Qualcomm 8295

Core Drive Technology was founded in 2018 and focuses on the research and development of automotive chips. In just 6 years of development, Core Drive Technology has laid out a broad product matrix in the field of automotive chips: including cockpit chips, control chips, smart driving chips and gateway chips.

On March 20, 2024, CoreDrive Technology officially launched the new product X9H 2.0G in the X9 series of smart cockpits. It adopts 16nm automotive-grade technology and is an upgraded product of X9H in the X9 series of smart cockpits. X9H 2.0G has a built-in 6-core Arm Cortex-A55 processor, with the main frequency increased from 1.6GHz to 2.0GHz, CPU computing power of 45KDMIPS, and GPU computing power of 140GFLOPS, which can better meet the growing computing power requirements of cockpit infotainment systems; In June 2024, at the Beijing Auto Show, CoreDrive Technology launched X9CC, the latest product in the X9 cockpit chip series, with a CPU computing power of 200KDMIPS and an NPU computing power of 40TOPS. The NPU computing power is 3-5 times higher than that of the previous generation of chips, which is comparable to the parameters of Qualcomm 8295.

X9CC is a multi-core heterogeneous computing platform designed for central computing. It has a computing power of up to 200KDMIPS and integrates multiple high-performance computing cores in a single chip, including 24 Cortex-A55 CPUs, 12 Cortex-R5F CPUs, 2 NPUs, 4 GPUs, 4 Vision DSPs, and a Crypto engine that supports national encryption algorithms.

Image from CoreDrive Technology's official website

The X9CC single chip can support the operation of up to six independent systems, including entertainment navigation, LCD instrument, central gateway, intelligent driving, intelligent vehicle control and information security. According to the software deployment, X9CC can support the flexible configuration of each computing core in different systems and reasonably allocate computing resources. During the Beijing Auto Show, the industry's first central computing unit X-Center2.0 equipped with an X9CC chip, built by Neusoft Rich, also made its debut. This product provides car companies with a cabin-driving fusion solution with technological leadership and cost-effectiveness.

So far, the shipment volume of the Core Chip X9 series cockpit processors has exceeded 3 million pieces, and models equipped with X9 series chips from car companies such as Chery, SAIC, Changan, GAC, BAIC, Dongfeng Nissan, and Dongfeng Honda have all been mass-produced.

Jiefa Technology launches a new generation of cockpit domain control SoC chip, entering the field of mid-to-high-end cockpits

Recently, at the Munich Shanghai Electronics Show, Jiefa Technology, a subsidiary of NavInfo, announced that the company's new generation of intelligent cockpit domain control SoC chip AC8025 has been installed in the intelligent cockpit system of a certain independent brand model, and has officially entered the mass production stage.