How many chips does a car really need?

Recently, many partners who want to buy a car have encountered the problem of delayed delivery, 4S stores delay the delivery of new cars mainly because the world is facing a shortage of car chips. Next, let's take a look at what's going on with car chips. Chips (also known as integrated circuits) are silicon chips containing integrated circuits that are small in size. In electronics it is a way of miniaturizing circuits (mainly semiconductor devices, but also passive components, etc.), usually manufactured on the surface of a semiconductor wafer.

From the application point of view, the car is small to the tire pressure monitoring system TMPS, camera, large to the vehicle controller, self-driving domain controller, are inseparable from a variety of chips. It can be said that the intelligence of the car is the intelligence of the chip. If the cell phone chip is the "brain" of the cell phone, then the car chip is also equivalent to the brain of the car. The automotive chip can be divided into "function chip", "power semiconductor" and "sensor" three categories.

Function chip (MCU) is also known as the "micro-control unit", the car inside the electronic control system, infotainment system, powertrain system, vehicle motion system and other system functions want to run normally, all need to use this type of function chip in order to be realized, the most popular The most popular "automatic driving system" is also inseparable from the function chip.

Automotive power semiconductors are mainly used in automotive power control systems, lighting systems, fuel injection, chassis safety and other systems, which are generally used in traditional fuel vehicles in the start-up and power generation, safety and other areas; new energy vehicles require a large number of power semiconductors to realize the vehicle's frequent voltage conversion needs, in addition, the electric car in many parts and components of the power semiconductor support.

Automotive sensors are the input devices of automotive computer system, its role is to run the car in a variety of operating conditions, such as speed, temperature of various media, engine operating conditions, etc., into electrical signals to the computer, so that the car is in the best working condition. For example, oxygen sensors, tire pressure sensors, water temperature sensors, electronic gas pedal position sensor and so on.

In summary, the car chip for a car is very important, in the function of the chip, power semiconductors and sensors of the three types, the sensor is the smallest market share, if there is no sensor car even the throttle can not be stepped on, now, I believe that everyone understands why the lack of chips can not create a car.

How many chips does a car need? In the past, the manufacture of a traditional car generally need to use about 500-600 chips, with the continuous development of the automotive industry, today's cars are gradually shifted from mechanical to electronic direction, the car to do more and more intelligent, then the number of chips needed is naturally more. It is understood that the average number of chips required per vehicle in 2021 has reached more than 1,000.

In addition to traditional cars, new energy vehicles is the chip "big", this car requires a large number of DC-AC inverter, transformer, converter and other components, and these IGBT, MOSFET, diode and other semiconductor device demand has increased dramatically, a good new energy vehicle needs A better new energy vehicles need a chip may reach about 2,000, the demand is very impressive.

China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, deputy secretary-general Li Shaohua pointed out that the current global semiconductor industry chip scale between 300 billion U.S. dollars to 400 billion U.S. dollars. Among them, the car chip is about 40 billion U.S. dollars or so, accounting for less than 10%, will obviously cause the car companies in the scheduling or scramble for orders in a weak situation.

From the point of view of technical requirements, automotive-grade chips are really prohibitive for most chip companies. Consumer electronics chip technology iteration is very fast, and automotive-grade chips are almost all more than a decade ago, but the technology is "outdated", but the threshold has not been lowered. On the contrary, automotive-grade chips require high performance indicators, longevity, reliability, security, and quality consistency that are difficult to match for consumer electronics chips.

Compared to consumer chips and general industrial chips, automotive chips have a much harsher working environment: a wide temperature range of -40℃~155℃, high vibration, dusty, electromagnetic interference, etc. Due to personal safety issues, automotive chips for reliability and security requirements are also higher, the general design life of 15 years or 200,000 kilometers. "Automotive-grade chips need to go through a rigorous certification process, including the reliability standard AEC-Q100, the quality management standard ISO/TS 16949, the functional safety standard ISO26262, etc.

The automotive chip is designed to meet the needs of the automotive industry.

The high standard, strict requirements and long cycle of automotive-grade chips have repeatedly raised the threshold for entry into the industry, which has directly led to the fact that only chip companies with very strong comprehensive or vertical integration capabilities and the ability to maximize their scale advantages can bring automotive-grade chips into their production lists. Looking around the world, such automotive-grade chip companies are also NXP, Infineon, Siemens and a few others, there are too many and too few, which also leads to another reason why the demand for automotive chips exceeds supply.

China is trying to establish a perfect automotive chip industry innovation ecosystem, to solve the next development of China's automotive industry in the short board. BYD, SAIC and many semiconductor companies have entered the field of automotive chips.