As the earliest private car enterprise in China to set foot in the field of new energy vehicles, BYD has not limited itself to a vehicle manufacturing enterprise from the beginning.
the deep vertical integration of the industrial chain of new energy vehicles is a major feature of BYD's foothold in the domestic automobile industry.
from March 219 to April 22, BYD has reconstructed its own core supply chain of new energy vehicles by a series of splits and integrations, including five Foday companies and a company specializing in semiconductor technology-"BYD Semiconductor".
as for the top five Freddie companies, let's press the table first, and today we will focus on the newly split BYD Semiconductor.
with a financing of 127 million yuan, the valuation has quadrupled in one year. Why is BYD Semiconductor so expensive?
in April 22, BYD reorganized and established a company named "BYD Semiconductor" through a series of equity transfer and business transfer to BYD Microelectronics and other companies.
"BYD Semiconductor" is a combination of BYD Microelectronics, Ningbo BYD Semiconductor and Guangdong BYD Energy Saving Technology. At the same time, it also absorbs the intelligent photoelectric, LED light source and LED application related businesses of Huizhou BYD Industry.
Subsequently, in May and June, BYD Semiconductor successively won a huge investment of about 2.7 billion RMB in the A and A+ rounds of financing.
before winning these two rounds of financing, BYD Semiconductor's official valuation was 7.5 billion RMB.
According to the latest valuation of BYD Semiconductor given by CICC not long ago, it has reached 3 billion RMB.
among the investors in round A and A+ of BYD Semiconductor, there are institutions such as Sequoia Capital, CICC Capital and SDIC Innovation, which are good at capital operation; It is also like industrial capital such as BAIC Investment, SAIC Investment, SMIC, ARM and Xiaomi.
in the two rounds of financing, 44 investors from more than 3 institutions have become external shareholders of BYD Semiconductor, and these shareholders currently hold about 28% of the company's shares, and all the remaining shares belong to BYD.
This also means that BYD still enjoys absolute control over the company.
In July, there were media reports that BYD intended to promote the independent listing of BYD Semiconductor, and it was rumored that it would land in science and technology innovation board or the Growth Enterprise Market.
2.IGBT: the "heart" of electric vehicles
BYD Semiconductor after reorganization. Its main business covers R&D, production and sales of power semiconductors, intelligent control IC, intelligent sensors and photoelectric semiconductors, and it has systematic capabilities including chip design, wafer manufacturing, package testing and downstream applications.
Among BYD Semiconductor's many products, the most core is the IGBT chip and module of vehicle specification.
IGBT (insulated gate bipolar transistor) is a high-power power electronic device, and it is also the core component of the electronic control system of new energy vehicles.
it can directly control the conversion between direct current and alternating current, and determine the torque of the drive system (the acceleration capacity of the car), the maximum output power (the top speed of the car) and so on.
in addition, because the energy consumption of the vehicle electronic control system mainly comes from the inverter controller, and 7% of the loss of the inverter controller comes from the switching part, which is the core component IGBT.
therefore, the efficiency of IGBT also indirectly affects the cruising range of vehicles.
as the core of IGBT module, IGBT chip and power battery cell are also called "dual-core" of electric vehicle, and its cost accounts for about 5% of the whole vehicle cost.
if the cost of the whole IGBT module is calculated, this value should be increased to more than 7%.
take Tesla Model S as an example, it uses three-phase asynchronous drive motor, in which 28 IGBT chips in plastic package are needed for each phase drive control, and 84 IGBT chips are needed for three phases.
Before BYD Semiconductor launched the truly mass-produced vehicle-grade IGBT, more than 9% of domestic vehicle IGBT supply depended on international giants, such as Infineon, Anson, Mitsubishi, Fujitsu and so on.
In recent years, domestic suppliers including BYD Semiconductor and Starr Semiconductor have made great efforts to catch up.
Take the data of 219 as an example:
Infineon, the world's largest IGBT supplier, supplied about 628, sets of IGBT modules to the electric passenger car market in China, accounting for nearly 6% of the market.
BYD Semiconductor supplied nearly 2, sets, accounting for about 2% of the market.
BYD Semiconductor's progress in IGBT field is behind BYD's investment for 15 years.
BYD Semiconductor can't get where it is today without a decision made by Wang Chuanfu under great pressure in 28.
3. touch the stone and turn it into gold: Wang chuanfu acquired Zhongwei integrated circuit
BYD first set up a research and development team in 25 to formally lay out the IGBT industry.
It is only two years since BYD acquired Qinchuan Automobile. This year is also the birth year of BYD's first truly self-developed model, BYD F3.
from this point of view, BYD has long had the idea of mastering IGBT, the core component of the electronic control system, and its entrance is the most critical IGBT chip in the whole system.
Before and after 25, the design and production capacity of domestic integrated circuits were very weak, so it was easy for BYD to design IGBT chips.
by 28, BYD's internal research and development of IGBT chips had been delayed, and it was still faced with the problem of how to manufacture the chips when they were designed.
this year, Wang chuanfu took a fancy to a semiconductor manufacturing enterprise-Zhongwei integrated circuit (Ningbo) co., ltd.
this company was established in 22 with a registered capital of USD 1 million, mainly engaged in wafer production and chip manufacturing, and was called the most advanced high-tech project in Zhejiang province at that time.
Ningbo municipal government actively introduced this project, and many investors are even more enthusiastic about it.
The reason why Zhongwei integrated circuits were so popular at that time was also because it was urgent to develop the integrated circuit manufacturing industry in China. In addition, this company is actually related to TSMC.
Zhongwei Integrated Circuit was established by Taiwan Province Yatai Technology and Damao Electronics. Feng Mingxian, Chairman of Zhongwei Integrated Circuit, used to be Chairman of Damao Electronics and CEO of Asia-Pacific Technology Company.
in the 199s, Taiwan Province vigorously developed the semiconductor industry. When TSMC was first established, TSMC No.1 Factory was leased to it by the Industrial Research Institute of the Ministry of Economic Affairs of Taiwan Province. Before taking charge of TSMC, Zhang Zhongmou was the president of the Industrial Research Institute.
after the lease of TSMC No.1 factory expired in February, 22, TSMC donated a laboratory in the factory to ITRI and sold the remaining fab equipment to Asia Pacific Technology, which Feng Mingxian was in charge of.
This batch of second-hand equipment just became the foundation of Zhongwei IC, but it also laid a hidden danger for the company's later development.
after more than five years' development from 22 to 28, Zhongwei IC did not grow into the expected star semiconductor manufacturing company, but gradually declined.
the biggest problem is that the chip production equipment is old and the equipment maintenance cost is high, resulting in insufficient production capacity, and the other is the shortage of funds.
all kinds of reasons are concentrated, which eventually leads to the bleak operation of Zhongwei integrated circuits and the end of being auctioned.
in 28, this semiconductor company was on the verge of bankruptcy, and almost no one was found to take over.
The turning point came in October this year. BYD Wang Chuanfu spent nearly 2 million RMB to photograph Zhongwei integrated circuit amid numerous external doubts. Later, the company became "Ningbo BYD Semiconductor" and has now been integrated into "BYD Semiconductor".
At that time, from the outside world's point of view, the acquisition would make BYD lose at least 2 billion RMB, and the company's share price also fell accordingly.
However, it turns out that Wang Chuanfu's acquisition decision put BYD's IGBT product development and manufacturing on the right track.
after Wang chuanfu took over Zhongwei, he integrated his business into BYD's production chain, and the core product was IGBT, an electric vehicle.
in this way, BYD has established a relatively complete capability in the R&D, design and manufacturing of IGBT chips and devices.
4. The evolution direction of IGBT
In 29, BYD officially launched IGBT 1. chip, and successfully passed the scientific and technological achievements appraisal of Power Electronics Branch of China Power Association. The launch of this chip also broke the technological monopoly of international giants in this field.
then in 212, BYD introduced the IGBT 2. chip.
Based on this chip, BYD has built a vehicle-level IGBT module and applied it to BYD's pure electric vehicle e6.
in 215, BYD upgraded the IGBT chip to version 2.5.
after 1 years of research and 7 years of acquisition of Zhongwei integrated circuit, BYD's IGBT business has been growing, and its IGBT module turnover exceeded RMB 3 million this year.
In 217, BYD's IGBT 4. chip was successfully developed, and in November 218, it was officially launched.
under the blessing of this chip, the comprehensive loss of BYD IGBT module is reduced by about 2% compared with the mainstream products in the market at that time, and its temperature cycle life can be more than 1 times that of mainstream products in the market.
BYD IGBT 4. chip
Now BYD is the only automobile manufacturer in the world with the design and production capacity of IGBT, the core electronic control component, and the other is Toyota.
BYD Semiconductor's IGBT products are not only used in BYD cars, but also have reached cooperation with many vehicle and electronic control suppliers such as Jin Kang Auto, Lanhai Huateng and Jitaike.
in April this year, BYD started the IGBT project with a total investment of RMB 1 billion in Changsha.
this project designs a production line with an annual output of 25, 8-inch wafers, which can meet the production demand of 5, new energy vehicles.
At present, the production capacity of BYD IGBT chip wafers has reached 5, wafers/month, and it is expected to reach 1, wafers/month in 221, which can supply 1.2 million new energy vehicles a year.
For BYD Semiconductor, its achievements in the field of IGBT are in the past. In this field where technology iteration is so fast, if you don't advance, you will fall back.
with the continuous improvement of the performance of pure electric vehicles, it also puts forward higher requirements for power semiconductor components.
as the core component of the electric motor and electronic control system of pure electric vehicles, the performance of IGBT devices also needs to evolve.
at present, the IGBT based on silicon material is close to the performance limit. The wafer thickness of the 12V car gauge IGBT chip applied by BYD has been reduced to 12um (about the diameter of two hairs), and it is extremely difficult to reduce it further.
for the whole industry, it has become a * * * knowledge to seek new semiconductor materials with better performance.
silicon carbide (SiC) is the best successor, also known as the third generation semiconductor material.
it is known that the critical breakdown field strength of silicon carbide is 1 times that of silicon, the band gap is 3 times that of silicon, and the thermal conductivity is 3 times that of silicon, so it is considered as a power device material beyond the limit of silicon material.
relevant industry insiders said that compared with the current silicon-based IGBT, the silicon carbide-based IGBT will provide many advantages such as lower chip loss, stronger current output capability, better high temperature resistance, and smaller electronic control volume and weight.
however, at this stage, due to the high cost, silicon carbide-based IGBT is only applied to pure electric vehicles with long battery life for the time being.
BYD Semiconductor, as the head company in the industry, has naturally seen this trend. At present, it has invested heavily in the layout of silicon carbide power devices to accelerate its application in the field of electric vehicles.
According to BYD Semiconductor's plan, by 223, it will completely replace silicon carbide with silicon-based IGBT materials, and improve the vehicle performance by 1% on the existing basis.
5. BYD Semiconductor's greater ambition
At this stage, most industries are discussing the domestic substitution of chips. All enterprises don't want to encounter sudden supply cuts and bans like Huawei, and they are afraid of being tied up.
BYD Semiconductor, whose core product is automotive grade semiconductor, is a typical domestic substitute for IGBT chips.
in the past, its devices were basically supplied by BYD's car products. Last year, BYD sold about 23, new energy vehicles, which is actually a limitation for IGBT chips.
the annual sales volume of new energy vehicles in China has exceeded one million, and the number of new energy vehicles has exceeded four million.
after the reorganization, BYD Semiconductor's ambition is no longer limited to BYD itself, but is aimed at all domestic new energy vehicle companies and even international manufacturers.
for the whole new energy automobile industry in China, the addition of such a vehicle-grade semiconductor supplier means that new energy automobile enterprises have the opportunity to realize the domestic substitution of IGBT chips and devices. After all, most automobile factories still purchase such core components from foreign suppliers.
The spin-off financing and subsequent listing of BYD Semiconductor is actually a win-win situation for the development of BYD and China's new energy automobile industry.
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