Due to the shortage of chips, the car factory stopped production.

In 22, the so-called first year of magic, it seems that everyone is used to it.

The specific thing is this. At the beginning of December, it began to be reported by the media. Due to the reduction of production by upstream enterprises, the production of car-gauge chips began to decrease. In the last month, some domestic car factories will face the risk of production decline, or even stop production.

it is the North-South Volkswagen that is likely to stop production first. Without the supply of chips, on-board computer modules such as ESP and ECU will not be produced, which means that the models containing these modules will not be produced. This is quite understandable. The North and South masses with large output and advanced cars are naturally more vulnerable to such incidents.

Just as this rumor spread like a raging fire, some media or individuals began to ask the public in the north and south about the truth of the incident, and all the answers were similar, roughly meaning that "due to the COVID-19 epidemic, the supply of chips for some electronic components in the car was affected, but they were still in normal production."

if you simply explain this sentence, it is true that it is affected by the shortage of chips, and it can still maintain normal production at present. After that? I don't know.

There is absolutely nothing aimed at the public here. Under the wave of globalization, the supply chain has gone wrong, and almost no car company can be immune to it. It is reported that car companies such as Dongfeng Honda and Chery Automobile will face different degrees of chip supply crisis. The reason why the public is particularly concerned is just that trees attract the wind.

Reasons for lack of cores

In fact, before this happened in the automobile industry, there was a wave of lack of cores in the technology circle, with the production of mobile phones reduced and the graphics cards out of stock ... Friends who have the feelings of saving machines should know that until now, several top graphics cards are hard to find.

The automobile industry's response to the shortage of chips is lagging behind, mainly due to the deviation of automobile companies' judgment on the market.

The procurement cycle of the chip industry is rather long. Generally speaking, it is necessary to start ordering from manufacturers six months to one year earlier. At the beginning of the year, domestic car companies were hit by the epidemic and stopped production. At that time, car companies generally lost confidence in the market and reduced their chip orders one after another. However, as the epidemic was gradually controlled, the market recovered faster than everyone expected, and the production capacity needed to be filled quickly. Looking back, the chip inventory was in a hurry.

There are not enough chips, so we have to step up the order. The order volume has increased explosively, which is difficult to digest in a short time, and various emergencies have occurred in some areas: at the end of September, the only wafer factory of Asahi Kasei, a Japanese audio IC giant, caught fire and did not extinguish it for 82 hours; In November, employees of three trade unions in stmicroelectronics held a general strike in their respective factories. VX chips were in short supply, and the prices of agents increased. Parts of Europe were hit by bad weather, transportation was not smooth, and the supply of raw materials was reduced ...

In addition to affecting the production of downstream enterprises, the price of chips also rose. Take NXP (NXP), a leading manufacturer in the automotive chip industry, as an example, a price increase letter with NXP trademark has been circulated on the Internet, with the general content: Due to the COVID-19 epidemic, we are facing a serious shortage of products and rising raw material prices, so we decided to raise the price of all products.

The picture comes from the Internet

Simply put, the shortage and price increase of chips have had a great impact on the automobile industry beyond many people's imagination.

chips are used in automobiles

According to data provided by NXP, at present, the value of semiconductor components used in the production of a mid-to-high-end fuel automobile is about 4 dollars. However, with the development of autonomous driving and car networking technology, this cost will exceed $1,2 in the future.

where do all the costs come from?

Let's talk about the semiconductor components in the car:

Can automotive semiconductors be simply divided into functional chips according to their types? MCU（Microcontroller? Unit), power semiconductor (IGBT, MOSFET? Etc.) and sensors.

MCU is mainly used in the core aspects of safety and driving, the control of automatic driving (auxiliary) system, the display and calculation of central control system, and the control of engine, chassis and body ...

Power semiconductors are mainly used for power supply and interfaces, such as vehicle Ethernet and logic, and the conversion of AC and DC in new energy vehicles plays an important role.

sensors are easy to understand. In addition to all kinds of radars, airbags, tire pressure detection and so on will use all kinds of sensors.

The data comes from American consulting firm StrategyAnalytics

From here, we can see that chips are almost everywhere in cars, and more importantly, the technology of such car-level chips, especially the core chips related to automobile power and safety, is basically in the hands of several big manufacturers.

The current situation is that five automobile chip manufacturers, NXP, Texas Instruments, Infineon, Renesas and stmicroelectronics, account for half of the global automobile chip market. If any one of them has problems, global automobile companies may have no cores available.

domestic chips have a long way to go to get rid of the status quo.

Domestic chips in the storm of lack of core -1

Real status quo

Even if the front is dark and boundless, as long as there is hope in the heart, it can lead the team to victory. -"Ren Zhengfei, it's never too late to start"

This is the chicken soup that Ren Lao often pours. In fact, it is quite suitable for the moment when there is a lack of core. In fact, Huawei is experiencing an unprecedented lack of core. Before selling the glory brand, it was obviously a last resort, and the chip was in a hurry. Huawei chose to give priority to its flagship mobile phone series with its only inventory, just like a strong man's broken arm, but it had to be done.

Huawei's lack of core can't be confused with the lack of core of domestic car companies at first glance. The former is mainly restrained by American forces, and the latter is more related to the market and the big environment.

but if you ask me, it's easy to talk, and there is a once-and-for-all solution, that is, to develop domestic chips, get rid of the technological blockade of capitalist countries, let the chips drop to the price of sand, and print "Made?" on the chips. in? The words "China"

ideal fullness, realistic bone feeling.

Reality is like a pot of cold water coming from the sky.

in p>219, the global automobile chip market scale was about 31 billion yuan, and the domestic related industries scale was 15 billion yuan, accounting for less than 5%. At the same time, the market share of domestic brand cars exceeded 3%, with a huge gap.

Roland Berger's White Paper on the Supply Chain of New Energy Vehicles in China mentioned that in China's automobile market of 28 million vehicles a year, the output value of automotive semiconductors in China accounts for less than 5% of the world, and the import of some key components exceeds 8%-9%. Among the top 2 automotive semiconductor industries, there is only one local enterprise in China.

... There are countless related data, which show that Chinese enterprises are really not competitive in the chip industry at present.

Domestic chip -2

The future can be expected

Yes, but not at present. In the future, we are worth looking forward to.

In September this year, with the support of the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the National New Energy Automobile Technology Innovation Center led more than 7 enterprises and institutions to set up the "China Automobile Chip Industry Innovation Strategic Alliance", which is equivalent to the national team on automobile chips. After training together, chip autonomy will become the next round of development focus of all vehicle manufacturers.

in fact, many domestic car companies have started to make their own car chips.

BAIC Group, Imagination Group and Cuiwei Co., Ltd. signed an agreement to jointly establish Beijing Hexinda Technology Co., Ltd. The joint venture company will focus on the research and development of autonomous driving chips and language interaction chips.

SAIC and Infineon have established a joint venture company of automotive IGBT-SAIC Infineon Automotive Power Semiconductor (Shanghai) Co., Ltd., focusing on research and development of IGBT.

but in this respect, BYD is the strongest. This year, due to the rising stock price, the guy who wants to regard Wang Chuanfu as an idol can probably be discharged from Pingshan to Houhai, and the author is also counted here.

As early as 29, Wang Chuanfu gave an order to buy Ningbo Zhongwei Semiconductor Company at a cost of 2 million yuan. Before that, the Ningbo government had invested a lot of money in it, and many people thought BYD would be dragged down by it, but Wang Chuanfu ignored all this.

later? After ten years of investment and R&D, BYD has the R&D strength of domestic advanced vehicle-grade IGBT, not only has the ability to independently design domestic IGBT, but also the first domestic self-developed vehicle-grade IGBT production line is from BYD.

not only that, it has been rumored that Huawei will hand in hand with BYD, and Huawei Hisilicon will deliver the confidential technical documents of Kirin chip to BYD. Although we don't know the details of the cooperation at present, it is worth looking forward to whether BYD will OEM Kirin chip or jointly develop car-standard chip.

One is the leading enterprise of new energy, and the other is the representative of China's science and technology. No matter where they go, their cooperation on chips will promote the domestic chip industry.

After the storm

Since the beginning of this year, Tucki and Ideality have been listed in the United States, and the share prices of BYD and Weilai have hit record highs, all of which excited us. At one time, we all thought that the strength of building new energy vehicles in China was far ahead.

At this moment, the core-lacking storm was like a pot of cold water poured on everyone's head. Looking back, we still have a long way to go with the international leading forces in many aspects of new energy vehicle manufacturing.

if we really stop production because of the lack of core, we will admit it, but we can't make it.

but after the storm, it's time to think about the domestic automotive semiconductor industry.

This article comes from the author of Chejia, car home, and does not represent car home's standpoint.