China's auto market recovery, which started in April 2020, is expected to continue and the market will return to positive growth in 2021, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) said on Jan. 13. Total auto sales in China fell 1.9 percent year on year to 25.31 million units in 2020, but the country remains the world's largest auto market.
The association also forecast total auto sales in China to grow 4 percent to 26.3 million units in 2021. Among them, the passenger car market is expected to sell 21.7 million units in the whole year, a year-on-year growth of 7.5%; The commercial vehicle market will sell 4.6 million units in the whole year, which is expected to decline 10% year on year. The new energy vehicle market sold 1.8 million units in the year, up 40 percent year on year, far outpacing the expected 7.5 percent growth in the passenger car market.
As can be seen from the association's forecast, the new energy vehicle market is expected to usher in sustained and rapid growth in the future, and is expected to shift from policy-driven to market-driven.
Automotive electronics continue to develop, but supply is tight
Both traditional car manufacturers and new car makers are pushing forward the development of new car technology. For example, the autopilot technology promoted by Tesla Model for many years is continuously updated; Nio recently launched its first sedan, ET7, which not only has autonomous driving function, but also may be equipped with semi-solid state battery to drive more than 1,000 kilometers in the future. At the ongoing online CES show, BMW unveiled its new eighth-generation iDrive system, a fusion of analog and digital technology that allows the car to get more information than the driver. Mercedes is showcasing MBUX Hyperscreen, an all-digital, all-screen infotainment system powered by artificial intelligence, at CES2021; Baidu and Geely Auto want to bring their self-driving technology to the ground...
It seems that demand for automotive electronics is on the rise, but recent market news has not made the car industry very happy. In early December of last year, the news that "North and South Volkswagen stopped production due to a 'lack of core'" put the fact of a lack of core in the automotive industry to the forefront. Although the relevant official of Volkswagen later responded that due to the uncertainty brought by the COVID-19 pandemic, the chip supply of some specific automotive electronic components was affected, and the overall recovery of the Chinese market further boosted the demand growth. Making the situation even more dire, threatening to disrupt some car production. But the situation is not as serious as market rumors suggest, and customer deliveries of the vehicles involved have not been affected. Vw is understood to have subsequently changed some production schedules at plants in North America, Europe and China.
In fact, the auto industry's "core shortage" problem isn't abating at the start of 2021, and the chip shortage is forcing major automakers around the world to cut production, directly affecting giants such as Daimler, Nissan, Honda, Ford and Fiat Chrysler.
According to Japanese media disclosure, Honda Motor announced to adjust the pace of production, cut the production of 4,000 units in Japan in January, mainly affecting the micro car "Fit", a source said that the chip shortage may affect tens of thousands of Honda vehicles in the first quarter.
In the United States, Ford Motor was also hit by the chip shortage crisis, Ford announced on January 8 local time, the United States will shut down an SUV assembly plant in Louisville, Kentucky, one week earlier than previously planned. Fiat Chrysler will temporarily close a Canadian plant and further delay production of its Jeep models at a plant in Mexico until the end of January, citing the aim of keeping other North American plants open.
Gm said there was no immediate impact on production, but that it was looking at ways to prevent factories from running out of stock. France's PSA Peugeot Citroen (SPA), which is merging with Fiat Chrysler, confirmed Friday that its production had not been affected. BMW said it was in regular contact with suppliers, although it had not reduced or stopped vehicle production.
There are also reports that Japan's Suzuki Motor is also changing production and has no plans to idle plants. Japanese carmaker Subaru said it was dealing with delays in the supply of parts and might adjust output plans. Nissan Motor Co. will also reduce production of the Note model in Japan this month, saying it will slash production to 5,000 units a month from 15,000.
Toyota is suspending production at its plant in Guangzhou, China, as a global chip shortage continues to plague auto makers around the world, a company spokesman said recently. According to Japanese media, the shutdown could result in a cut of up to 30 per cent in January output, depending on how long it lasts.
The major semiconductor players are converging on the automotive market
On the one hand, the demand for electronic components in the automotive market is growing, and on the other hand, the consumer electronics market such as smartphones is flattening out. Therefore, automotive electronics has become the next hot spot for the electronics industry. Take a look at the revenue of major semiconductor players. For example, according to Infineon's Q4 2020 earnings report, automotive electronics contributed 43% of its 9.6 billion euro revenue. In NXP's most recent Q3 2020 results, automotive revenue was $964 million, or 43% of total revenue. According to STMicro's Q3 results, the automotive and discrete Devices division contributed the majority of its revenue, accounting for 32% of its total revenue......
In addition, the current mainstream semiconductor manufacturers are actively layout of the automotive electronics market, such as in the consumer electronics market, Qualcomm has always wanted to enter the automotive electronics market; Taiwan's MediaTek announced its entry into the growing automotive electronics market in early December 2016; In order to maintain their market position, some companies have made some strategic acquisitions, such as Anson Mae's acquisition of Fairchild, to fill the gap in medium and high voltage power components; Renesas consolidated its position in the automotive electronics market with the acquisition of Intersil. Infineon is strengthening its position in the automotive market with the acquisition of Cypress...
Infineon not only improved its automotive electronics product line through acquisitions, but also hired Cao Yanfei, a veteran of Continental Group and Bosch, as senior vice president and head of the automotive electronics division of Infineon Technologies Greater China to run the Chinese automotive market for Infineon.
In an interview, Cao Yanfei said Infineon's strategic direction in the auto market will be centered around three core issues: zero emissions will happen, drivers will become passengers, and the car will be the car.
"Zero emissions is going to happen. It's really the electrification of cars; Drivers to passengers, mainly around intelligent, network development; The car is the same car, so to speak, optimized around automotive intelligence, connectivity or comfort characteristics." He explained the three core areas, "Specifically, more innovative solutions in vehicle body, instrumentation/infotainment systems, chassis/safety, powertrain and advanced assisted driving/autonomous driving. Today, Infineon can offer different products for different needs and scenarios, and can provide customers with a one-stop solution."
In addition to Infineon's traditional strengths in power components, Infineon has invested a lot in automotive sensors in recent years. In autonomous driving, sensors are essential, and the more autonomous the car becomes, the more sensors will be needed. "There may be different combinations of solutions depending on your understanding of sensors, depth algorithms, and so on. "As the level of autonomous driving improves, the content of semiconductors in the car and the cost of BoM are increasing significantly, which means the market potential is huge." Cao Yanfei pointed out.
Sensors used in autopilot include modules for sensors such as radar and cameras. Infineon occupies a very important position in millimeter - wave radar. Cao Yanfei proudly said that Infineon is the largest supplier of 77GHz radar chips for vehicles, with 2/3 of 77GHz millimeter wave radar chips in the market coming from Infineon.
He also revealed that Infineon will next launch a millimeter wave radar based on the 28nm process, and even point cloud imaging millimeter wave radar products.
Anson & Company's presence in the automotive market began early. "Since entering the automotive market in 2010, Anson & Company has shipped 130 billion chips to automotive customers through 2019," said David Somo, senior vice president of strategy, Marketing and Solutions Engineering at Anson & Company Semiconductor. In 2019, more than 230 of these devices were used in each vehicle manufactured worldwide."
According to Onsonmae's 2019 earnings report, 33% of its $5.5 billion in revenue came from the automotive industry. Somo pointed out that in the future, Anson will continue to develop new products in the automotive market and increase the investment in research and development. "On the automotive side, we will push forward research and development around sensors, autonomous driving-related applications, new energy vehicles, and electrification of vehicles." "He confided.
Anson Semiconductor has developed a complete portfolio of product solutions and sensor modes to support L4 and L5 levels of autonomous vehicles, including ultrasonic sensor interfaces, image sensors, solid-state LiDAR and millimeter-wave radar technologies.
The company's millimeter-wave technology, which was acquired from IBMResearchHaifaLab, has been used in communications and fiber optics, and plans to use it in the automotive sector. It is currently evaluating samples with customers, Somo said. Not yet in commercial production of automobiles.
In LiDAR, the technology came from the acquisition of sensL to acquire solid state Lidar (LiDAR) technology. According to Somo, sensL was originally intended for the medical market, but with additional development, Sensl could be used in the automotive market. "Our silicon photomultiplier (SiPM) and single photon avalanche diode (SPAD) technologies have been applied to solid-state lidar systems by multiple customers, enabling the commercial use of lidar in the automotive industry for L2+ and L3 level autonomous driving safety applications." He further pointed out.
On the cost side, Somo pointed out that since Anson's lidar solution is a solid state solution, it can reduce the cost of lidar from over $1,000 for mechanical rotation in the past to the $500 range for solid state solutions today.
In terms of image sensors, Anson has enriched its image sensor portfolio with three acquisitions over the years, including Aptina, Cypress's image sensing technology and Truesense.
According to NXP's Q3 2020 earnings report, its automotive revenue was $964 million, or 42.5% of total revenue. In 2019, its automotive sector accounted for an even higher share of revenue, at 47 percent. Lars Reger, NXP's senior vice president and chief technology officer, previously said that NXP started investing in autonomous driving after its 2015 merger with Freescale. The company also acquired Marvell's Bluetooth and WiFi businesses to develop its own technologies, including UWB. It's all part of a stockpile of technology for NXP to develop autonomous driving, he told the company.
NXP is copying some of the innovative ideas from other industries to the automotive industry, as well as taking use cases from the automotive industry to other markets. Lars Reger, for example, said, "For example, the UWB chip, which we are now introducing into the automotive electronics to achieve innovation in the automotive industry, and now we have seen that the UWB chip can be used in the mobile terminal to achieve more powerful connectivity, including the integration with the car, the mobile phone and with the key, key and other systems. "
At the recent CES 2021 online show, NXP showed off its new automotive electronics solutions, including its all-new Automotive ADAS solution, which consists of new NXP radar processors and additions to its 77GHz RF CMOS radar transceiver TEF82xx and its new S32 automotive processing platform, It provides automakers with flexible, scalable configuration options and NCAP crash test requirements for corner and front-facing radar applications.
NXP's new dedicated S32R45 radar processor, when combined with the TEF82xx transceiver, provides excellent angular resolution, processing power and efficient detection range to not only distinguish small objects from far away, but also accurately classify vehicles, bicycles and pedestrians in crowded environments to provide better driving decisions for the ADAS system.
In addition, NXP announced the launch of BlueBox 3.0, a new high-performance computing development platform for vehicle safety. BlueBox 3.0 is a new and expanded version of NXP's Automotive Safety High Performance Computing (AHPC) development platform. Designed for pre-chip device software application development and verification, BlueBox 3.0 offers a variety of options to meet the needs of custom vehicles, L2+ driving assistance, and evolving vehicle architectures.
By leveraging NXP's 16-core Layerscape LX2160A processor, BlueBox3.0 doubles the processing performance of the previous generation. This performance improvement, coupled with the expanded I/O interface, greatly enhances the intelligence and connectivity of the new vehicle architecture.
By integrating centralized computing modules, integrated high-performance NXP processors, and expanded I/O connectivity, BlueBox3.0 can help designers shorten system development cycles and speed product to market.
In the short term, 5G will be a fast growing market, but in the long term, applications that are closer to terminals, such as automobiles, will have greater growth potential, said Maria Tang, vice president of core markets for Celinces Greater China. "The auto industry as a whole, whether in Europe, North America, or China, grew rapidly in the second half of the year as the trend towards electronic vehicles became more evident." "She pointed out.
Therefore, Celinsis invests a lot in the automotive field. According to Tang Xiaolei, Celinsis invests in both the traditional assisted driving field and the autonomous driving field above L4, especially the autonomous driving field above L4. "Due to regulatory constraints, it's too early to say L4 will be in production, but we're all involved in customer testing." "She said.
Tang also pointed out that the L4 manufacturers currently using Celings include Auto X and TuSimple, as well as others that she can't disclose at this time, but believes there will be more Celings in 2021.
In addition to foreign manufacturers, there are also many domestic manufacturers entering the automobile industry. For example, Horizon, an AI unicorn enterprise, has released a number of vehicle level AI chips. On January 13, Zhiji Automobile released high-end intelligent pure electric cars and intelligent pure electric SUVs, and its intelligent digital architecture uses Horizon Journey 2 chips.
It is reported that Horizon Journey 2 is the only automotive intelligent chip that has realized large-scale pre-assembly mass production in China. Horizon 2020 has launched Journey 3 with higher performance and richer features. In the first half of 2021, Horizon will launch the industry flagship Journey 5 chip for L3/L4 level automatic driving, which has up to 96 TOPS artificial intelligence computing power and supports 16-channel camera perception computing, surpassing the performance of the world's leading mass production automatic driving chip -- Tesla FSD. Next, Horizon will also launch a more powerful automotive intelligent chip, Journey 6, using 7nm process, artificial intelligence computing power over 400 TOPS.
Many domestic MCU companies are also entering the automobile market, such as Xinwang Micro has been struggling in the automobile market for many years; Jie Fa technology also launched the car gauge level MCU products; Zhaoyi Innovation, National technology and other manufacturers also plan to set foot in the car market...
conclusion
In general, 2021 will see an increase in the number and variety of electronic chips used in vehicles, as well as an increase in innovative solutions; In addition, there will be more new entry into the automotive market, such as AI chips, SiC chips, 5G chips, more sensor chips and so on. In 2021, however, the automotive electronics market should be in short supply as automakers, Tier 1 suppliers, and automotive electronics solutions continue to look for new automotive chip suppliers. This is an opportunity as well as a challenge for new entrants to automotive electronics. Seize this opportunity and you may be able to make yourself bigger and stronger along the way.