Analog Chip, "Three Good Students" of Automotive Chip

In the rivers and lakes of automobile supply chain, chip is definitely the hottest topic in recent years. In the past few decades, because it is too upstream, the market and division of labor are extremely mature, so it is basically self-contained and low-key to make money. However, in the past three years, due to the rapid popularization of new energy vehicles, the stimulation of "lack of core" and "international situation", automobile chips have become famous.

What chips does a car have? What are the main difficulties of automobile chips? If the supply is interrupted and the technical blockade intensifies, can domestic automobile chips still play?

To understand these problems, we should first start with the classification of semiconductor devices. Semiconductor devices can be divided into active devices and passive devices. Among them, active devices are more important, and this part has the largest market share, accounting for more than 80%.

Further subdivision, active devices can be divided into digital chips and analog chips: digital chips are devices that process and store discrete digital signals. An analog chip is a device for processing and providing analog signals. (Note: Sometimes sensors are classified separately)

So what role do digital chips and analog chips play in a car?

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Application of Analog Chip and Digital Chip in Automobile

Simply put, the familiar MCU and SOC belong to digital chips. They are "network celebrities" in the chip, which has attracted the attention of the science and technology circle and the capital market. On social media, the names of NVIDIA, Qualcomm and Horizon can be seen everywhere.

The ones with large quantity, variety, heavy workload and high design threshold in automobiles are classified as analog chips. They are more like the "three good students" in the school, with excellent grades and being helpful. They are also the right-hand man of their tutors, such as Texas Instruments, Adi and Na Xinwei.

Internet celebrities, you have heard a lot. Today, I mainly want to play a game of these three good students. To express my admiration for miyoshi students.

As the processor of sound, light, temperature and other signals, analog chip is a "bridge connecting the digital world and the physical world". From the connection of high and low voltage system of electric vehicle to voice control, on-board large screen, induction wiper, intelligent car light, fragrance system, atmosphere light, seat ventilation and heating, etc., these functions that everyone cares about when buying a car now must be realized by analog chips.

As a result, in class B new energy vehicles, the number of analog chip bicycles has increased from 160 to nearly 400.

These 400 analog chips are divided into five categories according to different application scenarios and signal types:

1.？ The sensor analog chip is mainly used to receive and process analog signals of various sensors, such as temperature sensors and acceleration sensors.

2.？ The power management chip is mainly used to detect and adjust parameters such as voltage, current and power.

3.？ The driving chip is mainly used to control various actuators such as motors and solenoid valves;

4.？ The analog signal processor is mainly used to filter, amplify and transform the analog signal to improve the quality and accuracy of the signal.

5.？ The display driver chip is mainly used to drive vehicle-mounted display screens, such as dashboard display screens and central control screens.

In addition to dedicated analog chips, analog chips are divided into two categories according to their functions: signal chain analog chips and power management analog chips.

There are analog chips in almost all electronic components, which creates the characteristics of a large number of analog chips: many types and large quantities.

Take the isolation chip especially needed by new energy vehicles as an example. From the perspective of safety, it is necessary to prevent human body and low-voltage equipment from being impacted by high voltage or surge, and these high-voltage signals need to be isolated. There are many modules that use isolation chips in new energy vehicles, including OBC (vehicle charger), BMS (battery management system), DC/DC converter in the vehicle, motor control drive, CAN bus and so on, so the demand for isolation chips has doubled.

In the field of analog chips, international manufacturers such as TI, ADI and Infineon almost monopolized in the past. Now, in some categories, domestic manufacturers can compete with international manufacturers in terms of technical indicators, performance and price, such as Na Xinwei, Sheng Bang Wei and Ivy Electronics. Among them, Sheng Bang Wei mainly focused on the consumer market, and Naxinwei smelled the opportunity of the new energy automobile market earlier and laid out the automobile industry. The first automotive chip was released in 20 16.

As one of the earliest companies in China to mass-produce digital isolator chips, Naxinwei's digital isolator products rank first in the domestic market and stand out in the global market.

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What is the difficulty of simulating the core gauge chip?

After taking stock of the types and uses of chips of domestic and foreign automobile and chip companies, let's talk about why the automobile circle was short of cores some time ago, the automobile had to stop production, the president had to "jump off the building" and the procurement was kneeling every day! Huawei, the consumer electronics circle next door, had no choice but to buy glory, but it didn't seem to cry so much to grab the site.

The core of the problem here is three words, "car regulations." Compared with industrial and consumer electronic chips, the reliability, consistency, safety, stability and long-term performance of car gauge chips have stricter standards.

There is a simple reason. The chip on the mobile phone is absent-minded It just doesn't work at best. It's stuck. Restart. If it is really angry, it will smash the phone. But if there is something wrong with the chip of the car, it may be life-threatening.

The birth of a car gauge chip has to go through product design, tape-out, package testing, car gauge certification, algorithm tool chain building, functional safety certification, software package development, and then the improvement and support of industry ecology. Every step has extremely high requirements.

For example, in the chip design stage, there are strict requirements for the design process and personnel certification, including the server.

From sample to mass production, it also needs complicated certification, including safety experts, functional safety processes and product certification, which generally takes two years.

In the quality verification stage, a chip is usually handed over to a third-party independent company for strict testing and certification, such as accelerated environmental stress reliability, accelerated life simulation reliability, defect screening and so on. The whole testing process takes about half a year, and once there is a problem in the middle, it may be necessary to re-test.

Under such strict requirements, if a chip wants to meet the car regulations and then "mass production on the car", it is probably going to be refined from bronze to king.

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Is the domestic car rating chip good?

Automobile-grade chips are in great demand and require high quality. Then, under the situation of trade blockade, can domestic enterprises break through the tight encirclement? Can domestic chips be played?

It is undeniable that at this stage, international manufacturers are relatively ahead, even far ahead, in terms of performance, technology, manufacturing and cost. In the past, in order to be safe, stable and efficient, international enterprises almost monopolized and domestic enterprises stood aside. However, under the current situation, only car companies and the automobile industry chain can give domestic chips confidence and patience, give domestic chips the opportunity to test, verify, test and get on the bus, and the rims and chip circles can understand and support each other and make breakthroughs in collaborative innovation, so as to truly open the road to the rise of our chips.

The good news is that some car companies have started to use domestic products in batches. For example, in the first half of 2022, Changan Automobile used domestic chips190,000. In the fields of MCU, computing chips, analog chips, sensors, etc., there are already chip companies and products that can be qualified to "get on the bus".

Of course, asking "customer dad" to support domestic production is only the first step. Chip companies in China also need to strengthen their own strength as soon as possible, strengthen basic research and personnel training, improve independent intellectual property rights, and improve technology and product quality, so as to gradually gain the trust of car companies.

Another challenge is that the chip enterprises in China are "small but scattered" at present. According to the data of China Semiconductor Industry Association, there will be 22 18 domestic chip design enterprises in 2020. However, there are only 289 enterprises with sales exceeding 100 million yuan, and as many as 1 164 enterprises with sales below10 million yuan. Homogenization competition is serious and profits are generally not high. It is even more difficult for enterprises to compete with international chip manufacturers.

This small, scattered and weak situation is likely to hit cotton with a heavy punch if you want to create a miracle. Only when the state and local governments jointly create the soil for the development of industries such as standards, systems and service systems, and then concentrate resources to support, cultivate and experience a few basic and potential seed players, can we gradually cultivate the unicorn of the chip industry and then evolve into a world-class enterprise with international competitiveness.

Some people say that the next decade will be the golden decade of China's chip industry. This statement is not an exaggeration. This is a chip breakthrough in which almost all employees participate. When the chip circle is full of strength, the automobile circle, the capital circle, the academic circle and even everyone who cares about domestic chips need to give them more confidence, trust and patience.

Burn one's bridges, stand still and taste the courage, and help the 3,000 Yue family finally swallow Wu.

This article comes from Che Yi author Zhiche Planet, and the copyright belongs to the author. Please contact the author in any form. The content only represents the author's point of view and has nothing to do with the car reform.