With the continuous improvement of automobile intelligence, the assembly volume of cameras has increased significantly, and the requirements for pixels have gradually increased. The automotive market is becoming a "must-fight" for image sensor manufacturers.
Among the models expected to be released in 2022, the ideal X01 is equipped with 12 8-megapixel cameras; THERA ET7 is equipped with 7 8-megapixel high-definition cameras and 4 3-megapixel high-sensitivity surround view cameras; the Xiaopeng G9 is equipped with 12 cameras, including an 8-megapixel front camera and a 2.9-megapixel front camera; and the Nezha S is equipped with 13 cameras. With the continuous improvement of automobile intelligence, the assembly volume of cameras has increased significantly, and the requirements for pixels have gradually increased.
Over the past 5 years, the most important driving force for image sensors has come from the upgrade of mobile phone cameras. Mobile phones from single to multi-camera, driving demand to grow exponentially, but with the saturation of the mobile phone market, the growth rate began to slow down. Today, new growth engines have emerged, and in the future, automotive intelligence will take over the baton of smart phones to lead the image sensor market to continue to grow.
Domestic image sensor manufacturers Weier Shares, Stewell, Geke Micro and other rising stars have successively laid out the supply chain of car companies, which will become the main force competing for the leader.
01
Automotive CIS trends
More than ten are standard, and there is still room for improvement at the megapixel level
At present, the intelligent perception system of the car is divided into two camps, one is the "pure visual faction" represented by Tesla, which strives to rely on the camera to achieve the purpose of perceiving and judging the driving environment, and has now realized the pure visual L2 level automatic driving system; the other side is the radar plus camera "composite school" represented by Weilai, Xiaopeng and other car companies, and intends to complete the collection of environmental information through a variety of hardware.
No matter which faction, the demand for cameras will only increase, the common front and rear cameras in the past can bring limited viewing angles, the importance of surround view and built-in cameras is highlighted, and the penetration rate has gradually increased. For example, in the cabin scene, the built-in camera can be used for driver identification, driving habits to set up self-operation, fatigue and distraction driving detection, car items and children's forgetting reminders.
Judging from the current layout of the new car-making forces, 11-15 cameras will become the mainstream hardware configuration scheme for commercial vehicles, of which the number of extravehicular cameras will increase to 8-11, including 4 imaging cameras and 4-7 perception cameras; in-cabin cameras will increase to 3-4 cameras, including 2-3 cabin surveillance cameras and a driving recorder.
In 2021, the global car lens leader Sunny Optics (02382. HK) shipped 67.98 million in-vehicle lenses, up 21% year-on-year. In the context of the lack of cores in the entire automotive market, double-digit high growth has been achieved, which shows that the number of in-vehicle lenses has grown fiercely.
The car lens accounts for only 20% of the automotive camera value chain, and the largest part is actually the image sensor chip, that is, CIS, about 50%, which makes the automotive CIS manufacturers will share the largest piece of the cake in this round of growth cycle.
It is also worth noting that the number of pixels in the car CIS is also greatly improved, for example, tesla Model series camera pixels are 1.2 million, Xiaopeng P7 car camera pixels are 2 million, and new models such as WEILAI ET7, Xiaopeng G9, ideal ONE SUV, etc. have begun to use 8 million pixel cameras to achieve better information collection accuracy.
In the future, as the level of autonomous driving is getting higher and higher, 12 million pixels and 13 million pixel front-view cameras may become a trend. The core component that affects pixels is CIS, and pixel upgrades drive price increases, which in turn further expands the market for automotive CIS.
02
Domestic manufacturers wrestle
Weir shares multi-dimensional leadership
Domestic chip leader Weier shares (603501. SH) owned by Howey Technology is currently ranked second in the world in the field of automotive image sensors. In the image sensor market, Weier is one of the few domestic companies competing with international leaders, and its competitors are mainly Sony, Samsung and ON Semiconductor.
Howey technology in the automotive field layout is very early, its CIS chip is currently mainly used in European and American car brands, and the major domestic car manufacturers will basically take the solution of Howey Technology as the first choice, especially the new car-making forces, which means that while consolidating the European and American markets, Howey's influence in the Asia-Pacific market is also considerable.
According to the performance forecast of Weier Shares, it is expected to achieve a net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies of 4.468 billion yuan to 4.868 billion yuan in 2021, an increase of 65% to 80% year-on-year. Some institutional analysts said that the profits of Weier shares from automobiles may be close to 1/3. According to this trend, the vision of "rebuilding a Vail" in the automotive market is not necessarily unattainable.
In addition to Weier shares, the domestic manufacturer Steway has developed 200 to 3 million pixel products from 2019 for on-board images for surround view and automatic parking; in 2020, it acquired Shenzhen Anxin Microelectronics to achieve the expansion of the on-board product line; by the end of 2021, Steway has two products that have passed the vehicle regulation level certification, and have begun mass production verification and small batch shipments in a number of main car factories, but mainly for post-loading on-board products, in the front-loading on-board market. The company said it has partnered with Tier 1 suppliers from several major automakers.
Another company, Gerco Micro (688728. SH)'s automotive CIS products have also been applied to driving recorders, 360-degree surround view, cockpit monitoring and other aspects.
Compare product layouts of image sensor manufacturers. In the field of high-end automotive CIS, such as the 8 million pixel market, ON Semiconductor is still the mainstay.
Vail has demonstrated the 8-megapixel automotive forwardview camera system for the first time at the 2022 International Consumer Electronics Show, gradually catching up with ON Semiconductor.
According to its publicly disclosed information, the company will release a number of car products in 2022, and the 8 million pixel ADAS products are already under development, and the time for mass production will fall in 2023.
Gekewei has not yet announced new product news.
Vail shares are slightly ahead of their peers in product layout, in addition, Weir shares are also deepening the moat in two directions.
The first is to join the NVIDIA platform and expand ecological construction. Vail has joined NVIDIA's self-driving car development ecosystem since 2021, a platform that brings together a large number of automakers and Tier 1 manufacturers. The leading ON Semiconductor has joined NVIDIA's platform as early as 2019, and now Weir shares have also joined the platform, which will boost the sales of its automotive CIS and help open up the gap with other competitors.
Following the establishment of Shanghai Xinkai Integrated Circuit Co., Ltd. with Beijing Junzheng at the end of 2020, in October 2021, Weier Co., Ltd. subscribed to Beijing Junzheng Ding's increased share through its wholly-owned subsidiary Shaoxing Weihao with a capital of 550 million. The latter, as a leading automotive memory leader, is preparing to raise part of the funds for automotive LED lighting chips and in-vehicle ISP (image signal processing) chips.
Both CIS and ISP chips are important chips inside the car camera, and is responsible for analyzing and processing the image signals transmitted from CIS. Weier shares itself also has ISP chip products, and Beijing Junzheng's layout has a crossover, which may become the direction of cooperation between the two research and development, and Beijing Junzheng's automotive memory products can also form a synergy with CIS and ISP chips.
On the whole, the three new stars in the Weier shares, whether it is products, channels or industrial layout advantages are more obvious, Gekewei, Steway and other manufacturers followed, but also in the development of high-end products, the future domestic market will not lack with ON Semiconductor a local leader.
This article is written by | Gu Tianjiao Source | Talent Magazine
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