First chip crisis in auto industry

Chips, which play an increasingly important role in modern automobiles, in the context of the current chip shortage, the international chip giants took the lead in raising prices, and some car companies are facing production stoppages. This is a scene of the world's automobile industry for the first time suffered a chip crisis. Chip security is becoming a part of the automotive supply chain security can not be ignored.

Writing 丨AutoR ZhiDao? The first step in the process is to make sure that you are able to get the best out of your car, and that you are able to get the best out of your car," he said.

"There is news that, affected by the lack of supply of chips, SAIC Volkswagen began to stop production from December 4, and FAW Volkswagen also entered a state of suspension from the beginning of this month. And the main reason affecting the production stoppage of North and South Volkswagen is the insufficient supply of chips."

To this, Volkswagen China responded that although the supply of chips has been affected, the situation is not as serious as rumored, and a solution is being sought. Xu Ying, head of the public relations department of Volkswagen Group (China), said, "We are paying close attention to the development of the situation, and we have also coordinated with the headquarters and relevant suppliers to actively take countermeasures. At present, customer deliveries of the vehicles in question have not been affected," said Xu Ying, head of Volkswagen China's public relations department.

After two days of fermentation, a number of suppliers have said they will face stock-outs or price hikes, while some brands have claimed to be completely self-sufficient without being affected.

Bosch, the world's largest automotive supplier, said it has been concerned about supply chain bottlenecks for certain parts in the industry, "not only in the automotive industry, but also in the entire global sourcing market where there is a shortage of semiconductor components." Bosch also pointed out that every auto parts supplier, including itself, is not immune to the current tense situation, Bosch in close contact with customers to try to maintain supply.

German auto parts supplier Continental recently said that although chip makers have responded to the recent surge in demand by expanding production capacity, the additional supply required by the market will take 6-9 months to materialize, so potential supply bottlenecks could last until 2021. New car production has already been affected by the recent shortage of onboard chip supply at German Volkswagen Group's joint venture plants in the country.

In addition, taking into account the uncertainty of the new crown epidemic remains, occupying half of the global automotive chip market, NXP, Texas Instruments, Infineon, Renesas and STMicroelectronics chip makers at any time by the impact of the epidemic and the possibility of shutdown and suspension of production.

NXP Semiconductors, a Dutch supplier of automotive chips, had to raise prices for all its products because it was facing a "significant increase" in material costs and a "severe shortage" of chips, according to an e-mail to customers.

Germany's Infineon Technologies said it is expanding its investment to boost production at its Austrian chip plant. A statement from the company said, "Taking into account a certain increase in car production in 2021, we will adjust our production capacity globally."

And domestic OEM BYD, for its part, first commented on? "Chip shortages lead to some of the car companies shut down" rumors responded that the company has a whole set of industrial chain in the new energy batteries, chips, etc., not only can be fully self-sufficient, there is a surplus of external supply.

BYD's accumulation in the field of chips can be said to have been amplified by this incident. And each parts manufacturers take this opportunity to joint price increases and voice, seems to be creating a trend of parts price increases.

What chips are missing from Volkswagen?

In addition to Volkswagen China's reply, North and South Volkswagen responded accordingly to the news of the shutdown.

Faw Volkswagen responded that the company is currently communicating with relevant suppliers, and the actual situation should not be as exaggerated as written.

Shanghai Automobile Volkswagen responded that the production of new cars has indeed been affected to a certain extent, but the company did not stop production completely as rumored, the supply of chips in the market is a global problem, and it is not just the automobile industry that is affected, and not only Volkswagen is affected in the automobile industry.

It is reported that this shortage of automotive chips will lead to ESP (electronic stability program system) and ECU (electronic control unit) that is, the car computer two modules can not be produced. And all Volkswagen models are equipped with ESP and ECU products, so the impact is the biggest.

In fact, not only is Volkswagen basically equipped with ESP and ECU products, according to China's current laws and regulations, ESP is a mandatory product installed in every car, while the ECU is equivalent to the automobile's computer, controlling the operation of the engine and transmission is also an essential part of the modern automobile.

At present, the domestic ESP and ECU are mainly supplied by Continental and Bosch two suppliers, affected by the chip storm, the two parts giants are also facing the risk of shutdown; at the same time, there are media reports that Continental's inventory is only about 10,000 sets, which is not enough to meet the supply demand. It also shows that the chip shortage in addition to the North and South Volkswagen and other joint venture car companies are affected, most of the independent brands will also face the possibility of supply cuts.

Why can't ESP be built?

First of all, it is important to know that ESP also requires semiconductor chips, which are used for calculation and control.

According to reports, the current foundry leaders - TSMC, UMC, the fourth quarter orders have been full, the first half of next year, advanced process and mature process (advanced process: 28nm, 14nm, 7nm, 5nm, etc.; mature process: 28nm or more) production capacity have been customers all booked out.

And this shortage of automotive chips will lead to ESP, the electronic stability program system and ECU on-board computer, two key modules can not be produced.

And at present there is no specialized ESP supplier in China, the market is still monopolized by Bosch, Continental, Tianhe and other suppliers.

There is no domestic ESP research and development results, and does not have the independent research and development, design, manufacturing, and tuning of a full set of ESP technical capabilities. The main difficulty of the whole set of esp system is a variety of sensors, actuators and system tuning experience.

But at the OEM level, there are already brands such as BYD and Great Wall developing their own ESP systems, which also confirms why BYD is in a hurry to advertise itself.

Broadly speaking, the electronic stability control system should be called ESC, and "ESP," or Electronic Stability Program, is Bosch's name for the electronic body stabilization system. BMW's control system is DSC, Toyota's is VSC, and VSA is Honda's name for the body stability control system. BYD's "BSC safety control system" is the body stabilization system.

Back in 2017, "BYD safety control system (BSC) project, selected in the Daya Bay West Zone, Ringshuihe Industrial Park, BYD's second phase of the production base of the eastern half of the fourth floor of the E4 plant, workshop area of about 4,000 square meters, the production of safety control system (BSC) 200,000 sets / year.

As for why BYD still uses Bosch's ESP afterward, it's just that after successful research and development, Bosch supplied it to BYD at cost, which was lower than BYD's own price.

But in the field of in-vehicle chips, BYD should not have any problem to realize self-sufficiency.

In the domestic market, BYD enjoys the second largest battery, the first largest motor electronic control, the first largest BMS and the second largest IGBT market share.

So the manufacture of ESP is not difficult, the difficulty is in how to compete with the supplier giants in cost and price.

Chip shortages or will become the norm

China Automobile Association released statistics November sales forecast data. Forecast November auto industry sales estimate completed 2.733 million units, up 6.2% from a year earlier, up 11.1% from last year. From the information released by the industry information department of the CAC, passenger car sales in November this year increased by 9.3% year-on-year, while commercial vehicle sales increased by 14.2% year-on-year. In this way, auto production and sales will realize eight consecutive months of growth.

The market rebound superimposed on the national policy support, the domestic automobile manufacturers have to actively respond to the soaring demand, but the scale of the independent automotive chip accounted for less than 10%, and can not realize the safety of independent control of our country, once the chip suddenly cut off the supply, there will be more car companies will be affected.

It is reported that this auto chip shortage is mainly out of the chip's upstream enterprises, affected by the epidemic, overseas larger wafer fabs and sealing and testing factories have announced the shutdown, STMicroelectronics strike, resulting in a serious global semiconductor shortages. This, the traditional automobile average of more than 70 MCU chips used in each car to a higher degree of shortage, the international MCU chip maker's products have been postponed across the board.

In addition to the epidemic caused by the foreign chip assembly plant was forced to shut down, there is an important reason is that due to the growing demand for chips in consumer electronics and other industries, so the manufacturers of some of the automotive chip production capacity for the transfer of the face of the second half of China's strong recovery of the automotive market is not enough to anticipate, and naturally can not cope with.

While the more serious problem is that the chip shortage may not be able to improve in a short period of time, because the automotive chip is a customized product, a complete chip manufacturing process, including chip design, foundry and packaging and testing steps, and due to the current foundry capacity constraints, part of the chip trading cycle are more than a few months.

So the automotive market, like the digital industry, will be the normalization of the lack of core.

In addition, the wave of intelligent networked cars, software will define the concept of the future of the car has become a **** knowledge, the importance of the chip in the automotive manufacturing industry will become more and more obvious, therefore, have a strong "China Core" is imminent.

In September this year, by the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology **** with the support of the National New Energy Vehicle Technology Innovation Center (NNEVTIC) led by more than 70 enterprises and institutions set up the "China Automotive Chip Industry Innovation Strategy Alliance", which also allows the field of independent automotive chip has a unified action organization, but also reflects the importance of the state for automotive chips. This also makes the field of independent automotive chips have a unified action organization, but also reflects the importance of the state for the automotive chip. It is foreseeable that chip autonomy will become a top priority for vehicle manufacturers.

And for the entire semiconductor industry this year is also immense attention, China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology recently released a message that 5G, integrated circuits, biomedicine and other key areas into the "14th Five-Year Plan" national special planning, and to further guide enterprises to breakthroughs in core technologies, a strong and effective solution to the "necklace". The "neck" problem.

With China's automobile industry continues to move forward, more and more technical problems were overcome by the independent brand, but the chip and other core parts technology barriers can not be broken, then China's automobile industry, "big but not strong" hat will always be unable to take off. From ZTE, Huawei's encounters let us more clearly recognize that more core technology can master more right to speak.

Chips in the automotive industry is increasingly important in the context of Volkswagen's shutdown is just the beginning, it shows that a stable supply of chips is not only the current constraints of many industries in our country, it also affects the world's automotive industry, the crown of the manufacturing industry.

Chip security will be the key for all every player who intends to occupy a place in the era of smart cars.

This article comes from the authors of the Auto Home Car Family, and does not represent the viewpoint position of the Auto Home.