[Editor’s Note]
One “core” stirs the world. The domestic chip investment boom seems to be cooling down, and global electronics companies are in a crisis of “core shortage”. A fire at Renesas Electronics, the world’s top three in automotive semiconductors, may reduce the global auto production by more than 1.5 million.
Will the chip crisis reshape the supply chain? How should Chinese companies find their positions? How to lay out investment? The News Industry Observation and Industry Survey column “Pain Points” has launched the topic “”Core” Seeking War” from today. Through interviews with experts and industry insiders, it sorts out the current global chip status, dismantles the investment layout, and explores the solution to “chip” supply.
Since the end of last year, chip shortages have swept the global automotive industry. At the National People’s Congress this year, many representatives of the National People’s Congress also focused on the “car core shortage problem” and put forward suggestions for speeding up the localization of automotive chips.
Where is the bottleneck of the domestic autonomy of automotive chips? How to improve my country’s automotive chip industry chain and supply chain?
Recently, a reporter from News (www.thepaper.cn) interviewed Zou Guangcai, deputy general manager of the National New Energy Vehicle Technology Innovation Center and deputy secretary general of the China Automotive Chip Industry Innovation Strategic Alliance , It sorted out the problem of car chip “stuck neck” and the way out.
Zou Guangcai said that domestically designed automotive chips lack the application of car companies, and there is no opportunity for iterative optimization. The country should strengthen chip standards, evaluation and certification. There is no tape-out production line for complex car chips. Now the key car chips are to be taped out in other regions. We should have this kind of bottom-line guarantee.”
News: How about the development of my country’s automotive chip industry?
Zou Guangcai: At present, my country’s domestic automobile chip industry is still relatively weak and cannot fully meet the needs of the domestic automobile industry. For a long time, China has been the world’s largest auto market. In recent years, the scale of my country’s auto market has basically remained at 1/3 of the world’s quota. However, the scale of my country’s automotive chip industry probably only accounts for 10% of the world market share. In comparison, the top ten auto chip manufacturers in the world currently account for more than 70% of the global auto chip industry. Among them, high-end complex chips that have an important impact on the normal driving functions of vehicles are rarely developed independently by my country, and the products of domestic manufacturers are more concentrated in chip products used in body electronics.
News: What is the crux of the lagging development of my country’s domestic automotive chip industry? How to solve it?
Zou Guangcai: This is not a problem that can be solved by one or two products or one or two companies. It is necessary to improve the ecological chain of the entire industry. The entire ecological chain, including the standard system, design, testing, certification, tape-out, application, etc., has work to be done in every link, which needs to be improved and strengthened.
First, our countryThere is currently no standard system for automotive chip testing. Many product standards draw on international standards and international experience, but most of the international standards evolved in the 1980s and 1990s. At present, many new technical requirements have not been accommodated, and some indicators have lagged behind. At the same time, the Chinese automotive standards that emerged during the rapid development of my country’s automotive industry also have new requirements mapped to the chip level, but international standards cannot reflect the unique requirements of the Chinese automotive industry.
Therefore, my country needs to establish its own automotive chip testing standard system. The standard system is the technical language that connects and unifies the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain. Only when a standard system is established can the upstream industry know which standard to design according to, and the downstream will know which standard to choose chips according to. At present, there is no unified standard system, and there will always be problems in the connection between upstream and downstream.
Second, there is still a gap between the design maturity of domestic automotive chip design companies and international automotive chip companies.
Compared with ordinary consumer electronics chips, automotive chips have higher requirements for safety and reliability, and many experiences need to be accumulated in research and development. At present, most of my country’s auto chip companies are still in the first to second round of design, and have not yet reached the maturity level of international advanced auto chip companies.
Third, there is currently no platform or evaluation agency that can cover all levels of chip testing, and there is a lack of certification for independent automotive chip products. The evaluation of automotive chips is divided into three levels: automotive chip level, automotive electronic control system level, and vehicle application test level. At present, there is no platform or a testing institution in my country that can complete the three-level automotive chip testing and evaluation. Only after a complete evaluation, downstream auto companies can rest assured to choose their own auto chip products.
Because of high technical requirements and huge investment, no vehicle company or automotive electronics manufacturer will set up a large testing laboratory specifically for testing and evaluating chips. A common test and evaluation platform is needed between the chip industry and the automotive industry, and it is connected with the previous standards, and the product certification is completed with the support of standards and evaluations. The certification link is indispensable. my country has national compulsory standards for automobile safety-related parts and components, and product certification is required. For automotive chips, there is currently no domestic certification, but automotive chips have a great impact on automotive safety. With the development of my country’s automotive chip industry in the future, there will be new products on the car certification link
Fourth, there is currently no tape-out production line for complex automotive chips in China. Close nowKey car chips, such as MUC and SOC chips with more than 16 bits, are all taped out in other regions. This is also a “stuck neck” problem. We should have this bottom-line guarantee capability.
Fifth, domestically designed automotive chips still lack applications from car companies, and thus lack opportunities for iterative optimization. At present, my country’s automotive chip design capabilities are still relatively weak, and it is necessary to iterate in actual applications, find problems and feed them back to the chip design company for modification and improvement, and it is not possible to work behind closed doors. The cycle of change of integrated circuits is 18 months, and the function and performance will be improved quickly after only one or two iterations. Here, the downstream needs to give the upstream an application opportunity, but this application opportunity depends on the support of standards, evaluation, certification and other links, so that the downstream can use the upstream products with confidence.
News: According to reports, with the global chip shortage trend, design companies have sought production companies to divide production capacity. 8-inch wafers for vehicles are no longer an advanced technology. Why is there insufficient production capacity?
Zou Guangcai: The chip industry is often separated from design and manufacturing, and manufacturing is only OEM production. The investment in the production line of advanced process technology is very huge, and it is often difficult for chip design companies to bear this kind of investment. After the foundry company invests in the production line, it will OEM production for multiple chip design companies. It is difficult to support a production line by a single chip design company. When the production capacity is tight, it is normal for chip design companies to find the downstream and hope to allocate capacity to themselves. It should be regarded as a normal business behavior of the upstream and downstream under the market mechanism. It does not mean that the upstream must be strong, nor that the downstream must be certain. Strong, there is an interdependent relationship between them.
The reason for the current tight chip production capacity is mainly due to the impact of the epidemic at the beginning of last year. Automobile companies have accordingly lowered their production expectations and reduced chip procurement in the supply chain. Expected amount. However, the global automotive industry rebounded in the fourth quarter of last year, including my country’s rebound. At this time, auto companies began to increase production plans and increase orders. However, the supply of chips is peculiar. It is necessary to place an order one year in advance to guarantee the supply, and it cannot be produced one month after the order is placed today. In addition, consumer electronics is also rebounding, and the production capacity needs of both sides are superimposed, and the crisis of automotive chip shortage has emerged.
It is true that the 8-inch production line is not the most advanced process technology in the world, but different fields must be distinguished. Compared with ordinary consumer electronics, More stringent requirements for chip production process and quality controlThe system requirements are higher, and the current 8-inch chip production capacity for car regulations is not enough.
Previously, chip foundries have proposed to increase the price of automotive chip production by 15%. Naturally, there will be capital to take a fancy to this market because of its increased profits. Then, the production capacity of automotive chips may increase in the future. As for whether there will be surplus, it depends on the development of the automotive industry.
In addition, for my country, in addition to market-driven production capacity growth, under the current international environment, my country must control and control some key links in its own hands. grasp. From this perspective, from the national industrial macro perspective, it is hoped that there will be some complex automotive chip production capacity in the country as a bottom-line guarantee.
News: Is there any risk of breaking the supply? How to treat the right to speak in integrated circuits?
Zou Guangcai: In the short term, it seems unlikely at present, at least I have not heard of international auto chip manufacturers deliberately imposing some restrictions on China. The current tension in the automotive chip supply chain is a global issue, not specifically aimed at the Chinese automotive industry. Many international chip manufacturers have a global layout and will follow the market.
But we cannot ignore a phenomenon. Automobile chips are also a part of the entire integrated circuit industry. It is difficult to say whether the entire integrated circuit industry will present risks. If the entire integrated circuit industry causes such risks for some special reasons, then car chips cannot be immune to it. After all, the integrated circuit industry is a global focus industry vying for control, and automotive chips are only part of it. If such risks occur in the entire industry, it is difficult for automotive chips to guarantee that they will do nothing.
News: You just mentioned that the entire ecological chain needs to be further improved. The end result is that car companies dare not place orders with domestic chip manufacturers, forming a vicious circle. Where should we break the game, and how should we fundamentally change this state?
Zou Guangcai: In the application of domestic automobile chips, I think some policy support should be given. For example, you can consider giving the first set and batch of support policies to the application of autonomous car chip products. Or launch market-based product liability insurance for independent automotive chip products. These policies can alleviate downstream applications to a certain extent.The anxiety of using domestic chips.
But what is most needed is to strengthen standards, assessments and certifications. The China Automotive Chip Industry Innovation Alliance is issuing an internal invitation to invite members of the alliance to voluntarily join the automotive chip standard research working group to study the standard system of domestic chips from the top-level design level, including scope, order, classification, boundary, etc., to prevent standards from appearing Contradictions and deficiencies appear between. It’s like building a house first to build a rough house, which is roughly divided into the living room, which is the bedroom, and then decorate at the end.
In the long run, it is necessary to promote the electronic and electrical architecture used in the next generation of smart cars to be compatible with independent chips, or to use independent chips to design, instead of simply focusing on Design foreign chips. The iterative speed of automobile chips is faster than that of automobiles, and the current research and development is also aimed at the technical indicators of the next three to five years. Next-generation cars need to be replaced with new architectures. If independent chips can be nested in the architecture design process, as the production and sales of next-generation cars increase, the chips will naturally be driven.
For the next generation of cars, the general consensus in the industry is that they must be powered by new energy and have a powerful intelligent network function. This is reflected in the in-car technology. Its electrical and electronic architecture must be different from this generation of cars. At present, the development cycle of automobile iteration has been shortened, and we may see the next generation of automobiles in three to five years.
The next generation of cars may use technologies such as Ethernet and domain controllers, which can be iteratively upgraded through over-the-air OTA, and will use many new electrification and intelligence. Features. These are all done through chips, so next-generation cars may use a lot of more powerful chips that have never been used before.
In the development of next-generation automobiles, higher requirements will be put forward on automotive electronic components. When decomposed into chips, the performance indicators of the chips will be required, and these requirements will be transmitted. To upstream automotive chip companies, design around these needs, this is a process of upstream and downstream linkage.
News: As the domestic chip industry continues to grow, will it be possible to go global in the future? What obstacles will it face?
Zou Guangcai: In the future, China’s automotive chips will definitely go abroad, because market forces are at work. Our products are of high quality and low price, so there will naturally be demand in the international market.
In the process of going abroad, you may face the problem of how to match the foreign automobile industry. You need to be familiar with the situation of the foreign automobile industry, local laws and regulations and technical requirements, etc., from the technical level Speaking of each country, there are still certain differences.
At the same time, the business policies of various countries in the world are different, and the rules of doing business are also different, and extensive cooperation and healthy competition with foreign automotive chip companies are required. This requires domestic companies to gradually adapt. Although it may be far from the current point of view, I believe that one day in the future, our domestic auto chip companies and these mature foreign companies will compete on the same stage.