How many chips are needed for new energy vehicles?

According to statistics, the number of chips in traditional cars is about 500-600. With the addition of functions such as autonomous driving and new energy, most models are now generally equipped with at least 1,000-1,200 chips. Some models that focus on intelligence require even more chips. In addition to traditional cars, new energy vehicles are the largest consumers of chips.

Chips represent original semiconductor products, which are what we often call integrated circuits. If mobile phone chips are the brains of mobile phones, then automotive chips are equivalent to the brains of cars. Among them, automotive chips can be mainly divided into three categories: functional chips, power semiconductors and sensors.

Automotive chips are very important for a car. Among the three types of functional chips, power semiconductors and sensors, sensors can be said to have the smallest market share, but without sensors, the car can't even step on the accelerator. Now I believe everyone understands why you can't build a car without chips. From brake sensors to power steering to infotainment systems, automakers use chips in almost every part of the car.

New energy vehicles require a large number of DC-AC inverters, transformers, converters and other components, and the demand for semiconductor devices such as IGBT, MOSFET, and diodes has also increased significantly, so new energy vehicles with better chips have about 2,000 chips.

From a detailed perspective, it can be divided into nine categories: control chips, computing chips, sensor chips, communication chips, storage chips, security chips, power chips, driver chips, and power management chips.

Nine categories of automotive chips

1. Control chip: MCU, SOC

2. Computing chips: CPU, GPU

3. Power chips: IGBT, silicon carbide, power MOSFET

4. Communication chips: cellular, WLAN, LIN, direct V2X, UWB, CAN, satellite positioning, NFC, Bluetooth, ETC, Ethernet, etc.

5. Storage chips: DRAM, NOR FLASH, EEPROM, SRAM, NAND FLASH

6. Power/analog chips: SBC, analog front end, DC/DC, digital isolation, DC/AC

7. Driver chip: high-side driver, low-side driver, LED/display, gate-level driver, bridge, other drivers, etc.

8. Sensor chip: ultrasonic, image, voice, laser, inertial navigation, millimeter wave, fingerprint, infrared, voltage, temperature, current, humidity, position, pressure

9. Security chip: T-Box/V2X security chip, eSIM/eSAM security chip