Preface
2023 is behind us and I miss it so much! Hello everyone, it's time for the annual year-end inventory again. This year-end inventory and non-network also interviewed and surveyed nearly 20 automotive chip-related companies, and collected and sorted out the summary of the past and some views on the future of these enterprise leaders. Try to take the pulse of the development of the automotive chip industry in 2024. It's not accurate, it's not right, a family's words, please bear with me, for reference only!
Looking back on 2023, how to say goodbye to "involution"?
On December 6, 2023, at the China Automotive Supply Chain Innovation Achievement Exchange and Greater Bay Area Whole-Zero Matchmaking Conference held in Shenzhen, the Secretary-General of the Passenger Car Market Information Association (Passenger Car Association) released a set of data to review 2023 and forecast the automotive market in 2024.
If we look at the global sales data (January-August), we can see that the global auto market pattern has not changed much. In 2023, Toyota Group will still rank first in global sales, followed by Volkswagen Group, Hyundai-Kia, General Motors, etc. Although BYD has become the king in the Chinese market, it still ranks outside the top 10 in the global market. There are political factors, trade protection factors, and market differentiation factors. So, in 2024, is the road for the internationalization of Chinese automobiles to go to sea, is it ready? If the internationalization strategy cannot succeed and only "involution" in the Chinese market, then the life of the upstream and downstream industrial chain will still not be easy.
2023 car sales data in the Chinese market, source: China Passenger Car Association
Of course, there are places of optimism. Cui Dongshu believes that the production and sales volume of China's automobile market will exceed 30 million in 2023, and 2024 will be a big year for the new energy vehicle market, and the sales volume of co-production will exceed 40 million. At the beginning of the year, there will be a good start to the explosion, with the decline in prices, there are still growth opportunities for new energy vehicles, especially plug-in hybrid or explosive growth point, the car market is relatively optimistic. The author believes that the product form of plug-in hybrid is similar to the "quasi-smart machine" in the period of feature phones to smartphones, and is a transitional product, but the explosion of ideals and questions at this stage does confirm this point of view. If you want to completely replace the plug-in hybrid mode with an all-electric approach, upgrading the fast charging experience may be crucial. At present, major new energy flagship models have begun to popularize 800V high-voltage fast charging platforms, which also has a lot of impact on on-board power devices. Changqing Lai, Vice President of Renesas' Global Sales and Marketing Division, said that the popularity of the 800V high-voltage fast charging platform will put forward higher requirements for on-board power devices, and it is necessary to select power devices with higher withstand voltage capacity, higher current density, lower losses, and better heat dissipation performance to ensure the stability and reliability of the charging system. Niu Jiahao, an onsemi silicon carbide technology expert, believes that SiC power devices are indispensable in charging facilities and electric drive systems with 800V bus voltage. SiC has a stronger withstand voltage than Si devices, and its low on-resistance and high-speed switching characteristics can also play a better role as the bus voltage increases. Compared to the Si IGBT solution, the EliteSiC-based solution has a smaller system size, higher power density, and higher overall efficiency. Although SiC MOSFETs are superior in performance over Si IGBTs, Si IGBTs still have a considerable cost advantage and will also occupy a place in 800V systems. In a short period of time, taking high-voltage dual-electric drive applications as an example, there will be a "high and low match" scenario between SiC MOSFETs and Si IGBTs. If you want to summarize the automotive chip market in 2023, the author's most intuitive feeling is that the domestic and foreign markets are "ice and fire". In 2023, domestic automobiles (mainly new energy) will be devastated, and Japan, South Korea, Europe and the United States joint venture cars will be defeated in the Chinese market. At this point in time, it is particularly similar to the time when feature phones were converted to smartphones. The old forces are dying, the new forces are raising Gu, and in the end the winner takes everything. Even if the old forces see the future trend, the burden is too heavy, and the time for transformation has been missed. In the foreign market, it is said that the good thing is that the years are quiet, and the bad thing is "boiled frog in warm water". However, in the process of soaring sales of major domestic car companies, there are still only a few car companies that have mastered the supply chain to obtain the most profits, and the rest seem to lose more when they sell. The automobile industry chain has also fallen into "involution", but different enterprises look at difficulties from different angles.
Looking back at 2023 Challenge 1: Uncertainty
onsemi silicon carbide technology expert Niu Jiahao
Jiahao Niu, an onsemi silicon carbide technology expert, and Lai Changqing, vice president of Renesas' Global Sales and Marketing Division, both believe that the most difficult part of 2023 is "uncertainty". Niu Jiahao, an onsemi silicon carbide technology expert, said that the shortage of automotive chips, the complexity and uncertainty of the global supply chain, and changes in market demand may be the most difficult problems in the automotive industry chain in 2023, and automakers need to constantly adjust their production and procurement strategies to deal with potential risks and bottlenecks. As more traditional automakers and emerging automakers enter the NEV market, competitive pressure increases, and automakers need to continuously improve their technological innovation capabilities to maintain their competitive advantage. At the same time, the industry needs to adapt to constantly updated technical standards and regulations, which requires companies to continuously invest and adapt in R&D, production and certification. Lai Changqing, vice president of Renesas' Global Sales and Marketing Division, said that how to stay ahead in an uncertain market environment is the most difficult thing in the automotive industry chain. The automotive industry is a technology-intensive industry, with new technologies and products constantly emerging. It is very important for the automotive industry chain to keep up with the pace of technological updates and adapt to new market demands. In terms of automobiles, Renesas is focusing on the application of E/E architecture, the needs of the autonomous driving market, and technologies related to new energy vehicles. In the field of E/E architecture, Renesas has the RL78, RH850, and R-Car series, which cover the requirements of different computing power levels in the high, medium and low levels. In addition to the development and manufacturing capabilities of 4D millimeter-wave radar-related products, Renesas recently introduced the fifth-generation R-Car SoC platform, which uses advanced chiplet packaging integration technology to bring greater flexibility to vehicle engineers when customizing their design work, and the trend of electrification, Renesas has solutions for motors, BMS, and DCDC and OBC-related products. In addition, the current trend towards software-defined vehicles is becoming more and more obvious. In response, Renesas pioneered the introduction of an application software virtual development environment that provides advanced debugging and evaluation tools for analyzing and evaluating software performance. At the same time, Renesas has created a number of successful product portfolios based on these products to accelerate customer design and enable rapid innovation in a highly competitive market environment. In 2023, China's automotive industry will become a challenge for supply chain enterprises in terms of "volume" time, "volume" cost, and the general pursuit of cost performance in the market. Dr. Kai Wang, Founder, Director and CEO of SiEngine Technology, summarized the challenges faced in automotive intelligence in 2023, including the need for technology development and innovation to respond to changing technology trends, the need to reduce costs and increase efficiency, regulations and standards, and the need for technological innovation to maintain compliance, data security, and privacy.
SmartSens said that at the level of supply system, SmartSens has established a multi-pronged supply chain system, and continues to seek cooperation with more excellent domestic supply chain partners to provide customers with good product stability. It is worth mentioning that SmartSens Pro full performance upgrade series completely adopts domestic wafer supply chain partners, and realizes the design and manufacturing of the whole line in China. This has greatly accelerated the efficient implementation of customer products and comprehensively boosted the process of chip localization.
Review 2023 Challenge 2: Inventory
Yang Yuxin, Chief Marketing Officer of Black Sesame Intelligence
Although compared with the consumer electronics next door, automotive chips in 2023 are already a market segment with little inventory, but the inventory problem still exists. Lai Changqing, vice president of Renesas' Global Sales & Marketing Division, said that although there is also a problem of "destocking", the situation is gradually improving compared to half a year ago. "To alleviate the inventory problem, we should establish safety stock levels. Specifically, we can't have a very high inventory, which is a huge financial pressure, and at the same time, we can't do without inventory, because the demand for semiconductors is changing. In order to make the inventory or supply more healthy, Renesas will stock semi-finished products and finished products, that is, stocking at different stages before and after the packaging and testing, so that our delivery time can be shortened as much as possible, but at the same time, we can have a more flexible supply capacity. Yang Yuxin, chief marketing officer of Black Sesame Intelligence, said that there is no inventory problem in Black Sesame Intelligence, and with the cooperation of the entire ecological chain, Black Sesame Intelligence focuses on providing cost-effective and high-value smart automotive chip solutions for the automotive industry. The main products include the Huashan series focusing on autonomous driving and the Wudang series focusing on cross-domain integration: the first local chip platform that meets all vehicle regulations and certifications and is currently the only local chip platform that can realize a single chip to support the integrated domain controller of driving and parking - Huashan No. 2 A1000, which is currently the most mature and mass-produced local high-performance computing chip platform with the largest number of mass-produced car companies in China, and is currently in a state of full mass production and has been adopted by many leading domestic car companies, including FAW Group, Dongfeng Group, Geely Group, Jiangqi Group, etc., mass-produced and delivered models include Lynk & Co 08, Hechuang V09, FAW Group Hongqi E001 and E202, Dongfeng eπ brand's first pure electric sedan and SUV, Jiangqi Group's Sihao model, etc. In addition, the cockpit and single-chip NOA solution based on the Wudang series C1200 is expected to be mass-produced from the end of 2024 to the beginning of 2025. Dr. Kai Wang, Founder, Director and CEO of SiEngine Technology, said that SiEngine is the only manufacturer in China to achieve mass production of 7nm automotive-grade chips, and has launched the first domestic and the second international 7nm automotive-grade intelligent cockpit chip "Longying No. 1". In June 2021, the "Longying No. 1" was successfully taped out at one time, officially launched before the end of the year, and mass production will be achieved in December 2022. 2023 is a fruitful year for SiEngine. Lynk & Co 08, Ruilan 7, Lynk & Co 06 EM-P and other models equipped with the "Dragon Eagle No. 1" have been fully introduced to the market, and the "Dragon Eagle No. 1" has excellent performance and has attracted a lot of market attention. "Longying No. 1" has now become a pioneer in the mass production and shipment of high-end chips, with 200,000 pieces shipped by the end of this year, and the delivered models include Lynk & Co 08, Lynk & Co 06EM-P, Ruilan 7, etc., and more than 20 models from mainstream manufacturers such as Geely and FAW have been designated. A number of cooperation projects established by SiEngine and Tier 1 at home and abroad are progressing smoothly, and the market share of high-end "China Chip" will grow by leaps and bounds. SiEngine is working closely with a number of mainstream car companies and Tier1 to launch a next-generation integrated cost-effective platform based on "Longying No. 1". Since 2022, the chip shortage that has plagued the automotive industry for a long time has gradually eased, and the shortage situation has improved by 2023. Although the automotive industry has experienced the most difficult period in terms of chip supply, there are still a few key components facing the challenge of insufficient capacity. This suggests that despite the overall improvement, there are specific areas where supply chain recovery remains challenging. Liao Mingzong, senior vice president of the product marketing department of WPI Group, also stressed that some specific parts, such as silicon carbide modules, are still facing supply constraints. Looking back on the inventory situation in 2023, Liao Mingzong said that in 2023, due to the general environment, manufacturers have been reluctant to place long-term orders recently, reflecting the uncertainty about the market outlook. He mentioned that although everyone is still digesting inventory, the future market trend is still uncertain. He predicts that the growth of the semiconductor market next year could be between 10 and 20 percent, with the automotive industry growing particularly significantly. He also mentioned that the impact of exchange rates on spending power in various regions of the world may not be enough to drive significant growth in the market. Chen Chunhongbiao, vice president of the North China Product Marketing Management Office of WPI Group, according to the observation of the frontline, gallium nitride and MCU/MPU are the two hottest areas in the market at present. He expects that there will not be a serious shortage of silicon carbide in the market due to the demand from the new energy and photovoltaic industries. The MPU field, especially intelligent driving and intelligent cabin technology, will continue to grow. He mentioned that there are many companies in the domestic market that are investing in MPU and MCU-related industries.
Review of 2023 Challenge Three: Technical Challenges
In addition to involution, technical challenges are still a common difficulty faced by all enterprises. Yang Yuxin, chief marketing officer of Black Sesame Intelligence, believes that maintaining the rapid iteration of technology is the most challenging. In terms of product research and development, the technical challenge for Black Sesame Intelligence is mainly in the smooth development and successful tape-out of cross-domain fusion chip products, and the C1200 has successfully completed the complete test after tape-out, and the functional performance verification has been successful, and samples can be provided to customers. Based on the Wudang series C1200, the cockpit and single-chip NOA solution is expected to be mass-produced from the end of 2024 to the beginning of 2025. Niu Jiahao, an onsemi silicon carbide technology expert, said that in 2023, Niu Jiahao, an onsemi silicon carbide technology expert, will face the biggest challenge in terms of technology is the large-scale application of automotive-grade silicon carbide (SiC) power devices. Whether in a low-voltage 400V platform or a high-voltage 800V platform, SiC devices can bring significant efficiency gains to electric vehicles. SiC devices can operate at higher junction temperatures, have faster switching speeds, and withstand voltages, which pose particular challenges for chip design, driver optimization, circuit protection, module packaging, and system integration. In addition, the evaluation and certification of long-term reliability of end products using silicon carbide materials still presents considerable technical difficulties. In addition to adhering to the quality-driven concept in the chip design process, onsemi has built a complete and rich continuous monitoring, feedback and improvement system in the manufacturing process. In addition, in response to the complex working conditions and stresses of silicon carbide power devices in the automotive application environment, onsemi has also carried out in-depth cooperation and technical discussions with domestic and foreign car companies to jointly accelerate the market trend of large-scale silicon carbide on vehicles. According to Infineon's GIP division, Infineon's power semiconductor devices have ranked first in the world for 20 years, and it is a well-deserved industry leader in both technology and products. In the third generation of semiconductors, Infineon has nearly 20 years of rich experience in chip research and development, device design and application. Advocate and pioneer of many of the world's leading technologies, such as XT connectivity technology and the newly launched enhanced M1H silicon carbide (SiC) MOSFET chip technology. With these trusted advanced technologies, in 2023, Infineon released nearly 30 models of power semiconductors and driver ICs for green energy and zero-carbon industrial applications, as well as more than 10 new reference design boards and evaluation boards, including the industry's first 1200V H7 IGBT single-tube family, 2000V 62mm CoolSiC MOSFET modules, and 3.3 kV CoolSiC™ MOSFETs tailored specifically for traction applications. The launch of these products not only greatly helps to improve system efficiency, reduce system size and reduce total system cost, but also provides more reliable and differentiated innovative solutions for the market. Dr. Kai Wang, Founder, Director and CEO of SiEngine Technology, said that whether or not they can make products that the market really needs is the only test criterion for whether domestic automotive-grade chip companies are excellent. After the mass production of "Longying No. 1", the technical challenges faced by SiEngine include high-performance and cost-effective automotive main control chips, which have become a rigid demand in the market. The intelligent cockpit needs to process a large amount of data, including vehicle sensors, cameras and other external devices, and processing such a large amount of data is a technical challenge for car manufacturers, requiring powerful computing power and efficient data processing algorithms, so SoCs with higher performance and computing power are needed to meet the immersive cockpit experience. Dr. Kai Wang, Founder, Director and CEO of SiEngine, said that SiEngine does not make "brick-moving" products, but benchmarks the most advanced products in the international market in terms of design, process and performance, and has achieved a technological breakthrough in the field of domestic high-end automotive chips. The 7nm advanced process of Longying-1 can significantly reduce system power consumption, improve response speed, reduce costs and improve integration, so as to meet the needs of intelligent development of automobiles. During the R&D process of "Longying No. 1", the team of SiEngine overcame many difficulties and challenges, and was able to quickly achieve mass production and on-boarding, thanks to the following factors: "Tianshi" is the intelligent cockpit has become a rigid demand of users, multi-domain integration and centralized automotive architecture are the inevitable trends of automotive electronics, and high-performance automotive main control chips support the development of this trend; at the same time, domestic automotive chips are essential for maintaining the security of the supply chain. As a local chip company, SiEngine can better understand and meet the needs of the domestic market, so as to support and ensure the long-term development of the industry. "Geographical advantage" is the pivotal position of automotive chips in the industrial chain. SiEngine has been recognized and integrated with resources from investors and partners across the entire industry chain. The R&D team is the only team in the industry with successful R&D and mass production experience of both traditional automotive processors and high-end server chips, so that we can smoothly choose the right product at the right time to meet the needs of the evolution of the entire body electronic and electrical architecture. In 2023, another company, SmartSens, has also solved many technical challenges, and in terms of image clarity, SmartSens has upgraded its night vision full-color performance, resolution, and shutter efficiency. The company's Lightbox IR® technology enables clearer near-infrared imaging and accurate information even in low-light environments. Recently, SmartSens launched a 5MP high-resolution automotive-grade RGB-IR global shutter image sensor SC533AT equipped with advanced Lightbox IR® technology and SmartGS2® Plus technology, and applied High Density MIM process to achieve more accurate and reliable in-cabin visual perception.
Review of Challenge 4 in 2023: Capacity
Changqing Lai, Vice President of Renesas' Global Sales and Marketing Division
In the field of automotive chips, especially when it comes to analog devices, most companies are mainly based on the IDM model. The advantage of the IDM model is that the vertical integration of the whole process from design, manufacturing to packaging and testing can better control product quality, production cycle and supply chain, which is very important for the automotive semiconductor industry, which requires extremely high reliability. However, the IDM model requires a large capital investment to build and maintain the fab, and the flexibility for technology refresh and capacity expansion is relatively low. The Fabless model focuses on chip design, outsourcing production, packaging and testing to a professional foundry, which can reduce initial investment and operating costs, while leveraging the foundry's advanced processes and technologies to quickly respond to market changes. However, companies in this model have less control over the supply chain and may face challenges in supply stability and quality control. Jiahao Niu, an onsemi silicon carbide technology expert, said that onsemi's overall manufacturing strategy is Fab-Right, which can optimize the asset footprint to improve efficiency and best-in-class return on investment capital (ROIC), build a more resilient and resilient capacity system, and reduce profit volatility. In terms of SiC, onsemi's strategy is to integrate upstream and downstream vertically. As the EV market grows, the demand for on-board power devices continues to grow, and onsemi is likely to drive more capacity expansion in the future. Lai Changqing, vice president of Renesas' Global Sales and Marketing Division, said that the two models have their own advantages. IDM usually requires a large capital investment, as it is necessary to build its own factory for production. The advantage of this model is that it can control the production planning independently, but the disadvantage is that the assets are heavier and need to bear greater investment risks. Fabless, on the other hand, can make it easier for companies to travel light and enter the semiconductor industry. The advantage of this model is that the assets are lighter, there is no need to build your own factory, and you can save a lot of investment. However, the disadvantage is that it cannot control the production planning independently, and it needs to rely on the production capacity of the foundry. For Renesas, they combine the best of both worlds, with both fabs and test facilities, as well as the acquisition of a number of fabless vendors, which allows us to have sufficient capacity to meet supply chain challenges. In the past few years, the supply chain, especially the automotive electronics supply chain, has changed greatly, which has also triggered a change in the automotive electronics supply system. Infineon is in a position to connect the supply chain and has always attached great importance to maintaining active and open communication with partners in the upstream and downstream of the value chain. In the application of new technologies, new product promotion, life cycle capacity planning, and short- and medium-term delivery plans to carry out frank and constructive exchanges and consultations, has been recognized by customers and the market. At the same time, as the world's leading semiconductor technology company, Infineon has been committed to continuous investment in production capacity, adhere to product quality and service levels, and provide comprehensive system solutions and stable production capacity guarantee for customers around the world. In the face of a growing market for new energy vehicles and based on long-term forecasts for market developments, Infineon is continuing to expand its production capacity. Infineon's goal is to supply customers as reliably as possible. The first is the new 12-inch fully automated thin wafer fab in Villach, Austria, which was officially delivered and put into production in September 2021, marking Infineon as the only semiconductor company in the world to have two 12-inch wafer fabs at the same time. When fully operational, the two plants will be able to meet the annual demand for power semiconductors for 25 million electric vehicles worldwide. In addition, Infineon will build the world's largest 200mm SiC power semiconductor fab in Kulim, Malaysia, to meet the growing demand for automotive applications.
Looking ahead to 2024 goals
After reviewing 2023 and looking forward to 2024, major manufacturers have also disclosed their development goals and plans. Niu Jiahao, an onsemi silicon carbide technology expert, said that onsemi will continue to deepen the intelligent power supply and intelligent perception technology, improve its competitiveness in key markets such as electric vehicles, autonomous driving, charging piles, photovoltaic energy storage, and industrial automation through technological innovation and product upgrades, and continue to implement the revenue growth strategy, and invest in silicon carbide (SiC) with new product launches and incremental profits We will strive to achieve a compound annual growth rate higher than expected by the semiconductor market, strengthen carbon emission management and sustainable development practices, and promote the deep decarbonization of business processes. onsemi will also continue to strengthen its strategic partnerships with partners, ensure stable and reliable supply through long-term supply agreements, and promote innovation and industrial upgrading through joint technology application laboratories with customers. In addition, as technology and environmental regulations continue to evolve, onsemi will continue to focus on developing products and solutions that meet new standards, while remaining competitive by responding flexibly to changes in market demand. Lai Changqing, Vice President of Renesas' Global Sales and Marketing Division, said that in the face of market uncertainty in 2024, it is necessary to have sufficient market insight to correctly judge the market and adjust strategies in a timely manner. On the other hand, build strong vertical integration and supply capabilities to face potential risks in the market. In the past two years, in the face of the sharp increase in demand for chips brought about by the surge in new energy vehicles, Renesas has actively adjusted its production capacity, not only strengthening the production capacity of its own factories, but also combining the advantages of outsourcing factories to create a more flexible and flexible supply with the advantages of the equipment side. In addition, the market has been volatile in the past two years, and Renesas has been actively adjusting its inventory to improve safety and reduce risks. However, regardless of the external environment, Renesas has always been in close contact with upstream and downstream companies, as well as with customers. Although the test has been great, the company has overcome many obstacles and has remained stable in the market. The Infineon Group achieved record revenues and profits in 2023, with total global revenues exceeding €16.3 billion, up 15 percent year-on-year. Target markets such as renewable energy and electric vehicles have maintained strong growth momentum. Infineon's GIP division said that from the perspective of semiconductor market demand, the low-carbon trend will continue to drive strong growth in the power semiconductor market, especially power semiconductors based on wide bandgap materials (silicon carbide and gallium nitride), and the market size of SiC is expected to grow to about 20 billion euros by 2030. In terms of vertical segments, the demand for scalability, modernization, and flexibility in the grid is driving market demand growth for T&D and energy storage solutions. With the popularization of new energy vehicles, as a supercharging equipment to meet the fast charging needs of car owners, it will also become an industry outlet. Infineon's GIP division also said that in 2024, Infineon will unswervingly increase new energy, maintain technology and product innovation, adhere to customer orientation, and jointly empower industrial development through win-win cooperation. SmartSens said that in 2024, SmartSens will also focus on the layout of intelligent security, intelligent vehicle electronics, industrial machine vision and smart phones. In the field of intelligent security, as the industry enters the stage of intelligent development, the performance requirements of the market for security cameras will be further improved. In response to this trend, SmartSens' Lightbox IR® can improve the QE quantum efficiency in the 850nm and 940nm near-infrared bands, and achieve excellent night vision imaging performance even in ultra-low light environments. In the industrial aspect, as the application scenarios of machine vision continue to expand, we will further improve our product lineup, from area array sensors to line array sensors, and we will continue to iterate products and solutions to promote industrial automation upgrades. Finally, in the automotive field, the penetration rate of ADAS is gradually deepening, and the in-vehicle camera needs to have higher resolution and a wider field of view to meet the performance requirements of "seeing clearly" and "seeing far". In this regard, SmartSens will develop products that are more in line with the requirements of automobiles and accelerate the design of smart vehicles. In addition, the demand for multi-camera and high-pixel smartphones is becoming more and more significant, and SmartSens will continue to pay attention to the market. Yang Yuxin, chief marketing officer of Black Sesame Intelligence, said that Black Sesame Intelligence will continue to focus on technology research and development and product upgrades, such as the launch of a large model of autonomous driving in 2024, as well as the A2000 chip for L3 and above autonomous driving. A2000 supports the application of large models in autonomous driving scenarios, and will have great breakthroughs in chip architecture and computing power, through large model generation technology, through controllable and limited data input, A2000 autonomous driving large models can cover more scenarios, support the rapid mass production of large models in vehicles, and promote the marketization of cross-domain integration. At the same time, Black Sesame Intelligence will continue to deepen overseas cooperation, further help Chinese car companies go global, and continue to create value for car companies and partners. Dr. Kai Wang, Founder, Director and CEO of SiEngine Technology, said that in the face of 2024, the first thing is to continue to promote the "Dragon Eagle No. 1" to a broader market and provide better choices for more car manufacturers. At the same time, SiEngine will accelerate R&D and will launch autonomous driving chip products in the first half of 2024, and will also compete with international first-line brands to provide domestic high-computing power platforms for high-speed NOA and urban NOA. Eventually, SiEngine will provide intelligent cockpit chips, autonomous driving chips, high-end gateway chips and on-board central processing unit chips to achieve full coverage of core high-computing power chips in the field of automotive intelligence. In terms of ecosystem construction, we will carry out more exchanges and cooperation with domestic car manufacturers and new EV manufacturers, and work with industry chain partners to achieve a win-win situation. Dr. Kai Wang, Founder, Director and CEO of SiEngine, also revealed its IPO plan, which is expected to achieve an IPO around 2025. According to reports, some of the investors of SiEngine are also partners in the industrial chain, including automobile manufacturers such as Geely and FAW, other investors also include IP provider ARM China, and industry chain partners include SMIC, Neusoft, Bosch, etc. At present, SiEngine is also actively exploring the industrial market.
Dr. Kai Wang, Founder, Director and CEO of SiEngine Technology
Which track will have more explosive potential in 2024?
The companies participating in the survey generally believe that "intelligent" chips and power chips will be the main outbreak track of automotive chips in 2024. Yang Yuxin, chief marketing officer of Black Sesame Intelligence, said that from the perspective of industry experience, the pioneers who promote the evolution of electronic and electrical architecture are often chip companies, and this architecture innovation can bring more possibilities to the industrial chain and partners. Black Sesame Intelligence believes that the industry's performance exploration in the direction of single application will slow down, and the integration of multiple applications will begin to accelerate, and intelligent functions will gradually be popularized to low-end models, and the automotive industry as a whole tends to support as many intelligent functions as possible with higher cost performance on the most mass-produced models. Based on the judgment of market trends, Black Sesame Intelligence will release a domain controller to support the city NOA level in March 2023, based on two Huashan No. 2 A1000 chips, which meet the computing power of more than 100T, and is the first local chip manufacturer in China to propose to control the BOM cost within 3000 yuan. Secondly, Black Sesame Intelligence focuses on the layout of multiple product lines, the Huashan series focuses on autonomous driving, and the Wudang series focuses on cross-domain integration, which also caters to the needs of cost reduction and supports as many intelligent functions as possible with higher cost performance. Cross-domain integration is a breakthrough in the evolution of electronic and electrical architecture, through the gradual integration of different functional domains in the car, the four domains in the car (cockpit, driving, body, gateway) can be put in one chip, for customers to consider through chip integration, to achieve multi-functional support, to help customers achieve more intelligent function integration in a vehicle. Black Sesame Intelligence is the first company in the industry to propose the concept of cross-domain integration and launch chips, and the Wudang series C1200 is its first high-performance cross-domain computing chip. As the industry's first automotive-grade cross-domain computing chip equipped with Arm Cortex-A78AE automotive-grade high-performance CPU core and Cortex-G78AE automotive-grade high-rendering GPU core, C1200 has won the first place in China and even the industry in a number of indicators, with the industry's highest built-in MCU integrated computing power and integrated 10 Gigabit network hardware acceleration capabilities. On the premise of satisfying the safety of vehicle regulations, Black Sesame Intelligence is committed to providing comprehensive computing power for different intelligent terminals, making the solution a platform, so that customers can better use the same software suite and software tool chain to develop different applications on different chips. In this way, the software system supports different product lines, helps customers reduce R&D investment and upfront complexity to shorten the R&D cycle as much as possible, and further helps car companies reduce costs and increase efficiency. Lai Changqing, vice president of Renesas' Global Sales and Marketing Division, believes that among all the major types of chips used in new energy vehicles, power and main control chips together account for 50% or more of the cost of automotive semiconductors. Among them, the main control chip is responsible for calculation, analysis, output, and control, and under the trend of autonomous driving, with the continuous increase in computing power demand, more opportunities will emerge for the application of highly integrated "CPU+XPU" heterogeneous SoCs in automobiles. Power chip is the core of new energy, the most commonly used is insulated gate bipolar transistor IGBT, which is used in drive system, steering system, battery, air conditioning control and other modules, is the most potential for development of the device. And with the gradual maturity of the third generation of semiconductor technology, SiC power devices will also have broad prospects in new energy vehicles. Renesas believes that the factors that will affect its onboarding process are cost and performance. For semiconductor chips, the improvement of each process can bring higher performance, lower power consumption, and more obvious advantages in cost. Based on this understanding, Renesas continues to develop products and deliver cost-effective and high-performance automotive-grade products to the industry. Lai Changqing, vice president of Renesas' Global Sales and Marketing Division, expects that the industrialization of silicon carbide in vehicles will continue to accelerate in 2024. Renesas is also actively planning for this trend. In addition to the current 6-inch silicon carbide production line, Renesas has invested a lot of money and energy in the silicon carbide field to improve production capacity and technology in 2023, and Renesas' new silicon carbide 8-inch industry is expected to achieve mass production in 2025. Lai Changqing, Vice President of Renesas' Global Sales & Marketing Division, also shared his development ideas in the field of new energy vehicles. First, Renesas has invested a large amount of production capacity in silicon carbide while maintaining IGBT production and expects to achieve mass production in 2025. With the development of the automotive industry and the continuous demand for new technology fields, Renesas has effectively integrated the original IP of some products for the industrial and consumer fields into automotive-grade products. Third, we will continue to increase R&D investment in high-performance MCUs and SoCs to meet the product needs of domain control and ADAS. Among them, MCU is the largest sub-category of automotive chips, which can integrate memory, counters, USB, A/D conversion and other peripheral interfaces on a single chip to realize the calculation and control of products. SoC integrates key components of the system on a single chip, and at present, SoC chips with large computing power are mainly used in the fields of intelligent driving and intelligent cockpit. Renesas' newly announced fifth-generation R-Car SoC is geared toward high-performance applications and uses advanced chiplet packaging integration technology to bring greater design flexibility to vehicle engineers. For example, when advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) need to combine more outstanding AI performance, engineers can integrate AI accelerators into a single chip. What's even more exciting is Renesas' next-generation R-Car product family's plans for two MCUs: a new crossover MCU family and a standalone MCU platform tailored for vehicle control applications. Both MCUs will be based on the Arm architecture, providing vehicle engineers with scalable options and software reusability. At the same time, Renesas plans to provide a virtual software development environment to align with the "shift left" model that is widely known in the automotive industry. These software tools will allow customers to design and test software earlier in the development process. SmartSens said that in the field of new energy vehicles, in addition to the competition in battery energy efficiency, major car companies will also carry out a revolution on intelligent interaction around the "advanced assistance system". As autonomous driving technology continues to penetrate, ADAS systems are becoming increasingly complex and functional, requiring greater computing power and more efficient data processing capabilities. This increasingly stringent requirements for semiconductor devices, especially processors and sensors, are also driving the rapid development of related technologies. In order to better match the harsh needs of the automotive market, SmartSens has established a complete automotive grade chip research and development and quality management system, and the company has passed the IATF16949, AEC-Q100 and IS26262:2018 automotive functional safety process ASIL D three industry standard system certification, marking that the company has the ability to "escort" the whole life cycle of on-board CIS products. Dongfeng Nissan, Great Wall, South Korea's Ssangyong, Kaiwo, Leap, Lantu and other customers have been reflected. Onsemi silicon carbide technology expert Niu Jiahao said that automotive applications are an important driver of the SiC market, especially the popularity of electric vehicles and hybrid vehicles, and it is expected that the automotive SiC market will continue to maintain a strong growth trend in 2024, and the development of 200mm SiC wafers will accelerate the electrification process, promote economies of scale, and technological progress and manufacturing efficiency will help reduce the cost of SiC devices and promote their wider adoption in automotive applications. As automakers pursue higher energy efficiency and range, more models equipped with 800V platforms will be released, and the demand for SiC power devices will further increase. To ensure supply stability and address potential supply chain risks, automakers and SiC suppliers should strengthen their cooperation, including signing long-term supply agreements and investing in capacity expansion projects. Niu Jiahao, an onsemi silicon carbide technology expert, also said that those analog chip categories that can improve energy efficiency, enhance safety performance, support advanced communication technology and improve driving experience will receive more attention and development opportunities in the wave of vehicle electrification and intelligence. Electric vehicles require efficient and reliable power management, including traction inverters, on-board chargers (OBCs), DC-DC converters, and more. These systems require high-performance power management chips to optimize energy use, extend battery life, and ensure system stability. Electric motor control for electric vehicles requires high-efficiency motor driver chips for precise speed control, torque management, and energy efficiency optimization. Autonomous driving and advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) rely on intelligent sensing solutions, such as CMOS imaging, ultrasonics, and depth perception sensor fusion algorithms, which can detect more critical details to help drivers and passengers react quickly and greatly improve safety. In automotive infotainment systems, in-vehicle communication systems, and security systems, signal chain devices such as operational amplifiers, comparators, and data latches are critical for signal processing and system performance. In order to ensure the safety and reliability of automotive electronic systems, the demand for over-voltage protection, over-current protection, and galvanic isolation devices will also grow. Accurate temperature and current detection is also important to monitor system status and prevent faults such as overheating and overload. With more than 20 years of experience in the automotive industry, onsemi has a portfolio of high-performance AEC qualified products in all of the above categories to drive the electrification and intelligence of vehicles. Here are some of the key products and solutions that onsemi has deployed in the automotive space: SiC solutions: SiC MOSFETs and SiC diodes can improve the energy efficiency of systems and reduce size and weight, thereby improving the range and performance of electric vehicles. onsemi's SiC process platform has been iterated from the square cell structure of M1 and the Hex-cell of M2 to the strip-cell of M3, and is industry-leading in key performance indicators such as on-resistance, switching loss, reverse recovery loss, and short-circuit time, while achieving optimal cost. We also offer optimized gate drive solutions to drive SiC more efficiently and reliably. In addition, our Elite Power Simulator online simulation tool and PLECS model generation tool for the EliteSiC family and its applications enable engineers to gain valuable reference information for complex power electronics applications through system-level simulation early in the development cycle for soft/hard switching applications, boundary modeling, and custom parasitic environments, saving power electronics engineers time and money. Power Modules and Advanced Packaging: onsemi continues to develop advanced packaging technologies, such as silver sintering, die-casting mold double-sided water cooling, and other power modules (including silicon-based modules and SiC modules) for on-board chargers (OBCs), main drives, DC-DC converters, etc., to optimize energy use, extend battery life, and ensure the stable operation of the vehicle's electrical system. The innovative Top Cool MOSFET not only improves heat dissipation of the MOSFET, but also places components on the underside of the PCB, increasing power density and simplifying the design. Intelligent Sensing Technology: onsemi offers a variety of sensor solutions, including image sensors, ultrasonic sensors, and more, to advance advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and higher-level autonomous driving by innovating in high dynamic range, signal-to-noise ratio, low-light performance, low power consumption, and small size to improve driving safety. For example, the Hyperlux family of image sensors with industry-leading 150 dB ultra-high dynamic range (HDR) and LED flicker reduction (LFM) features ultra-low power consumption and small size enable automakers to create more accurate and intelligent decision-making systems, which is a key part of achieving fully autonomous driving. Connectivity and In-Vehicle Networking: High-speed data transmission and communication technologies that support in-vehicle Ethernet and other in-vehicle networking standards, covering major technologies such as LIN, CAN, and FlexRay, enable efficient communication within the vehicle and with the external environment. In response to the zonal control architecture trend, onsemi is developing 10BASE-T1S Ethernet technology. LED Lighting: onsemi provides high-brightness, low-power LED solutions for automotive interior and exterior lighting, including headlights, taillights, interior lights, and more, to improve visibility, design flexibility, and energy savings. Body & Comfort Systems: onsemi provides power and control solutions for body electronics such as windows, seats, air conditioning, wipers, etc., to enhance ride comfort and convenience. EV Charging Stations: onsemi provides efficient power conversion and management technologies for EV charging infrastructure to support fast and safe EV charging. The overall solution of high-end processors for automotive chips, source: SiEngine Technology
In the "intelligent" track, Xinqing's "Longying No. 1" has been deployed for many years, and its direct benchmark products are international first-line brands. Dr. Kai Wang, Founder, Director and CEO of SiEngine Technology, introduced the performance comparison between Longying No. 1 and competing products: the CPU computing power of the international first-tier brand is 105KDMIPS, and the CPU computing power of Longying No. 1 is 100KDMIPS. When using virtual machines to support multiple operating systems, the actual effective computing power loss is about 15%; The GPU computing power of the international first-line brand is 1100GFLOPS, and the GPU computing power of the Dragon Eagle No. 1 is 900 GFLOPS; The self-developed IP supports the synchronous operation of multiple operating systems, without the need for virtual machines, and the actual computing power of users is higher than that of Qualcomm products. The NPU computing power of international first-line brands is less than 4TOPS, and the NPU computing power of Longying 1 is 8 TOPS; Advantages in DDR 5; International first-line brands claim to support 8 HD cameras and 4 HD displays at the same time, and Longying 1 can support 12 HD cameras and 7 HD displays at the same time; International first-line brands claim to support 3-lane PCIe3.0, and Longying 1 can support 4-lane PCIe3.0; The "Longying No. 1" chip has a built-in information security engine that supports the national cryptography algorithm and an ASIL-D functional safety island; "Dragon Eagle One" THE DUAL CHIPS CAN HAVE THE COMPUTING POWER AND PERFORMANCE OF 200KDMIPS, 1800GFLOPS, AND 16 TOPS THROUGH THE INNOVATIVE SE-LINK CASCADE SOLUTION. The effectively improved computing power can support multiple high-definition 4K screens and large-scale 3D games, further providing an immersive cockpit experience. It also provides L0-L2 assisted driving functions including APA-assisted parking, RPA remote parking and other full-scene parking, which can realize the "integration of cabin parking and driving". In addition, according to the actual test results of the well-known evaluation software (Antutu) car machine version, the "Dragon Eagle No. 1" equipped with Lynk & Co 06 EM-P has a score of more than 500,000, which is nearly 20% higher than the evaluation results of chips of the same level of overseas first-line brands. At the same time, the self-test score of the "Longying No. 1" reference design board of SiEngine Technology is close to 540,000 in the vehicle-machine version of the same evaluation software. The strong performance makes the performance of the car machine exceed the level of the flagship mobile phone, which once again confirms the product strength of the Dragon Eagle No. 1, and makes it a better choice for Chinese car companies to carry the "China Chip". Infineon also looks at the intelligent cockpit track, Infineon said that the future cockpit will be one of the most important manifestations of automotive intelligence, and all applications of human-computer interaction can be realized in the cockpit. Infineon's semiconductor technology and its innovations in hardware and software will define the intelligent cockpit of the future and redefine it. In the field of autonomous driving, Infineon offers a complete intelligent driving solution with the AURIXTM family of MCUs as the core, with a dedicated power management chip OPTIREGTM PMIC, supported by NOR Flash, MOSFET, intelligent high-side switches and CAN/LIN transceivers. In the field of high-level autonomous driving, Infineon offers high-current power supply systems and hardware cryptographic security chips for SOCs. All chips are designed based on the latest security and functional safety standards, combined with Infineon's industry-renowned "zero defect" quality system, making autonomous driving safer and customers more assured. According to Infineon, the rapidly developing semiconductor applications for new energy vehicles can be divided into several areas: power semiconductors, semiconductors for intelligent and autonomous driving, and semiconductors for networking. As a result, Infineon has built a complete, comprehensive, system-level automotive semiconductor solution around these three applications. Although some analysts believe that the development of the new energy vehicle market will slow down in 2024, in the face of 2024, in the main business areas that Infineon focuses on, we also see some positive signals from the market:
- First of all, from the perspective of semiconductor market demand, the low-carbon trend will drive the strong growth of the power semiconductor market, especially power semiconductors based on wide bandgap materials (silicon carbide and gallium nitride);
- Second, demand for automotive microcontrollers and some other semiconductor components, such as those used in renewable energy, remains strong;
- In addition, in terms of vertical segments, in the Chinese market, the introduction or continuation of favorable policies will provide further support for the development of electric vehicles. At the same time, the ADAS/AD market will continue to grow.
Specifically, Infineon's automotive electronics business will focus on the following two aspects. The first is to provide system-level solutions for the needs of car manufacturers and Tier-1s. Taking the main inverter of new energy vehicles as an example, Infineon has built a complete system-level product solution with high efficiency, high performance and competitive advantage starting from the power supply chip, to the current sensor, the position sensor, to the microcontroller MCU, the driver high-voltage driver chip and the power device. The second is to focus on collaborative innovation, such as establishing innovation application centers with more car companies to help their next-generation product research and development in terms of time, cost, and technological advancement. SiC technology, which is very popular in the field of automotive electronics. Infineon sees the increasing adoption of SiC, especially in on-board chargers, high- and low-voltage DC-DC converters, and traction inverters. Due to the demand for miniaturized and more voltage-resistant power devices, many domestic and foreign car companies have begun to use or develop next-generation SiC inverters. Therefore, it is indispensable for semiconductor manufacturers to develop next-generation SiC power devices for automobiles. Over the next three to five years, Infineon will focus on investing in the next generation of more efficient semiconductor technologies, including Si and SiC, to deliver new products with higher power density, higher integration and higher flexibility in packaging patterns. From the perspective of the practical application of new energy vehicles, the cruising range and battery installed capacity are the key. SiC technology can significantly increase the cruising range, or reduce the installed capacity and cost of batteries for the same cruising range. This is the reason why more and more car manufacturers are planning new SiC technology solutions.
In addition to software-defined vehicles, what are the new trends in 2024?
The Society of Automotive Engineers of China recently released the "Top Ten Technology Trends of Chinese Automobiles in 2024", which includes the following items: A. L3 autonomous driving is commercialized B. Urban pilot assisted driving (NOA) is covered in key cities across the country C. Mass production of high-efficiency and high-density electric drive assembly D. Small-scale trial production of lithium-rich manganese-based cathode materials C. Active suspension drive-by-wire technology has become a new direction E. Domestic EHB is becoming more and more mature F. Cross-domain fusion chip (cabin and driving integration) will be popularized G.AI large model on the car for mass production H. 800V high-voltage fast charging has become the standard configuration of mid-to-high-end vehicles According to the author's survey of 20 interviewed automotive chip companies, statistics show that among the above technical trends, 40% of the enterprises are optimistic about the "commercial use of L3 autonomous driving", and 25%, 10% and 15% are optimistic about the "coverage of national key cities of urban pilot assisted driving (NOA)", "cross-domain fusion chip (cabin and driving integration) will be popularized", and "800V high-voltage fast charging will become the standard configuration of mid-to-high-end vehicles".
Xie Zhonghui, Chief Marketing Strategy Officer of Xinhuazhang In addition to chip companies, EDA companies are also included in the survey. It means that with the development of software-defined vehicles (SDV), chiplet packaging and other trends, automotive chips are becoming larger and more complex. For example, software-defined vehicles, more and more abundant scenarios will require better software and hardware collaboration, and even the development of automotive chips must be adapted to the software in advance. Under the trend of "software-defined vehicles", chip hardware, as the basis for running software, has higher and higher requirements. Xie Zhonghui, chief market strategy officer of Xinhuazhang, sees a trend that automotive chips are rapidly shifting from general-purpose and decentralized single-function chips to integrated multi-functional SoC chips. This is already a system-level chip, a complex platform with software and hardware integration and multi-node integration, each node has its own control unit (such as CPU) and computing unit (such as AI, NPU), and each node has its own operating system and application software. In order to meet this complex development demand, on the one hand, the impact is to provide more integrated personalized and cost-effective products by improving the process technology, such as the fourth-generation cockpit platform released by Qualcomm, the highest-performance processor Snapdragon 8295, which plans to use the 5nm process. In the future, there will definitely be 3nm products, which is an inevitable trend under market competition. Another impact, in fact, is through system-level innovation, in the case of limited process processing, through better algorithms, better software and hardware collaboration, etc., to meet the overall higher requirements of the final product use level. This is not only about prohibiting you from using the most advanced chips, but also about the entire industry chain. "For example, taking EDA as an example, why does the United States control the EDA tools designed by GAAFET? This is a technology that will be used in a large number of advanced process technology, in order to limit the overall industrial chain in China to climb upward. Therefore, I think that the ultimate development and breakthrough must also be the progress of the entire industrial chain and the entire ecology. Xie Zhonghui, chief market strategy officer of Xinhuazhang, said. Changqing Lai, Vice President of Renesas' Global Sales & Marketing Division, agrees with the technology trend of software-defined vehicles. Changqing Lai, Vice President of the Global Sales & Marketing Division of Renesas, said that software-defined vehicles represent a change in the management of automotive electrical and electronic architecture (EEA) systems, that is, the evolution from distributed management to centralized and domain control models. In the latter, the three main systems – software updates and security in networking and services, cooperative control and big data transmission in ADAS, and weight reduction and efficiency in EVs – will all be supported by the underlying sensing and execution to zone and domain control to the central computing unit. In response to this change in the new EEA, Renesas is focusing on the layout of product lines and solutions at the three levels of sensing and actuation, domain control, and gateways, and providing customers with greater value from two directions: one is performance expansion to meet the needs of different vehicle levels, and its corresponding products include high-performance SoCs, cross-domain 32-bit MCUs, and high-quality 16-bit MCUs; Universalize software and IP across applications and generations to make software highly reusable and portable, accelerate time-to-market, and reduce development costs for customers. Changqing Lai, Vice President of Renesas' Global Sales & Marketing Division, also said that the strategy of "hardware embedded and software upgraded" also means that the necessary hardware equipment is pre-installed during the vehicle design and production process, but does not immediately provide all functions, but gradually optimizes and expands the functions through software upgrades. The adoption of this strategy allows the car to adapt to new technologies and meet the new needs of users through continuous software upgrades after production, and even provide some new, previously unexpected features. This provides greater flexibility for the development of the automotive industry and makes cars more intelligent and personalized. AI makes various use cases more intelligent, but it requires chips with higher performance and computing power to support it, and chiplets provide another effective means to package various "chips" together to meet more complex use needs when the process is approaching the limit. These have a significant impact on EDA. From multi-core, chiplet packaging, multi-node to complete system, the scale of complex verification can easily reach tens of billions or even hundreds of billions, which puts forward higher requirements for the capacity of verification tools. If it's too slow, it doesn't make sense for the customer. In the face of these problems, Xinhuazhang put forward the concept of "agile verification". In order to develop agilely, it must be supported by agile verification, and it is necessary to be able to carry out rapid iteration of automation and intelligence in various chip verification and test environments at a low cost, and carry out system-level verification in advance, and carry out verification and efficient convergence of test objectives through a unified database and efficient debugging analysis. For example, for autonomous driving application chips, HuaEmu E1 high-performance hardware simulation system not only has high-performance simulation and in-depth debugging, but also provides LPDDR5 model for customer memory simulation, and CSI and DSI models for simulating the input and output of autonomous driving system, which are beyond the scope of a single chip, and are simulated and verified for the system solution of software and hardware integration.
In 2023, Black Sesame Intelligent deployed GalaxSim Turbo, a high-performance digital simulator of Xinhuazhang, to strengthen the development of a new generation of high-computing power automotive chips. Xie Zhonghui, chief marketing strategy officer of Xinhuazhang, said that the reason why GalaxSim Turbo can be favored by users is that it is different from general digital simulators in that its intelligent segmentation and distributed simulation technology can process simulation tasks in multiple threads and processes, which is convenient for users to carry out system-level simulation verification of software and hardware collaboration in advance at a speed of 1K-10KHz in the RTL stage of design, which greatly shortens the development cycle. Not long ago, the digital simulator of Xinhuazhang obtained the ISO 26262 TCL3 functional safety tool certification of TÜV Rheinland, which can support the development and verification of chips with the highest ASIL D level of automotive safety integrity standards. The certified GalaxSim has entered practical projects in the front-end and back-end simulation of many leading domestic chip design and wafer foundry enterprises, and has been applied in a variety of scenarios from IP module and subsystem verification to back-end door imitation, and its performance has been recognized by customers as benchmarking against the international leading level. In the large-scale design application of a leading system company in the industry, we used the world's leading third-party tools as a benchmark for comparison, and passed 100% of the functional tests in the regression tests of more than 25,000 use cases, and continued to improve the performance in the run-in with a large amount of application data with users.
However, in the second half of intelligence, OEMs and their industrial suppliers have realized that the function and experience of products not only rely on software definition, but also need the support of chip definition, through better software and hardware collaboration, while meeting performance and security, to provide users with more cost-effective solutions and products at the system level. In other words, both software and hardware are indispensable. With such a set of data, the SOP of a model takes about 36~48 months, and the development cycle of the chip also takes 24~36 months. More than 9 percent of the new models on sale are using the previous generation of chips. How to quickly shorten the cycle in between? EDA can actually play a big role in this. Xie Zhonghui, Chief Marketing Strategy Officer of Xinhuazhang, said that Xinqing is an important user of our automobiles. With the help of the automotive-grade EDA verification tool of Xinhuazhang, SiEngine can carry out system-level software and hardware co-simulation and debugging consistent with the real use scenario in the chip design stage, improve the collaborative performance of software and hardware in the system-level application environment, and reduce the risk of chips in the vehicle application process. Allowing new cars to no longer use "old" chips is the core problem that Xinhuazhang simulation car solution hopes to empower the industry to solve. This involves the concept of "PIL processor-in-the-loop simulation" proposed by Xinhuazhang. At present, this concept has been included in the "White Paper on Software Development and Construction of China's Automobile Industry" released by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers. PIL integrates scenario simulation and chip simulation technology to better create a closed loop from the chip to the OEM, combined with the vehicle V development model, starting from the system, provides a scenario-based ECU evaluation system and algorithm optimization solution, supports the vehicle-grade chip to achieve fixed-point loading 1-2 years in advance, and saves 80% of the time for HIL testing through cloud scene traversal simulation. In many rich and unique application scenarios in the automotive industry such as urban roads and outdoor off-road, it is necessary to integrate faster, higher performance, and safer chip simulation technology based on specific scenarios, so as to effectively reduce the risk of chips in the process of vehicle application, and ensure low failures while allowing the performance of chips to be truly exerted. An excellent scenario and chip simulation verification tool can help solve the challenges of time, talent, and tools, speed up the research and development of customized chips, lower the threshold for development talents, shorten the development cycle, and reduce various risks.