The Power Competition in Car Cockpits: Can Domestic High-Performance SoC Chips Compete?
The applications in car cockpits are becoming increasingly similar to those in smartphones, with high-performance SoC chips becoming a necessity for the next generation of smart cars. With the entry of consumer electronics chip manufacturers like Qualcomm and the rise of domestic automotive chip manufacturers, the competitive landscape of the in-car chip market is quietly changing.Author: Gan Ye Proofreader: Du ShaJiwei Network · Aijiwe APP, available for download in major app storesJiwei Network reports that from driving cockpits to smart spaces, under the overarching trend of “software-defined vehicles,” car cockpits have become the next battlefield for global chip manufacturers. In the past two years, every new model of smart electric vehicle has emphasized its performance in smart cockpits, automated driving assistance systems, human-machine interaction, and system smoothness as key selling points. Recently, at the launch of the highly anticipated Li Auto L9, a third of the time was dedicated to highlighting its “smart space”.The quality of these product experiences largely depends on a small chip. Meanwhile, the applications in car cockpits are increasingly resembling those in smartphones, with high-performance SoC chips becoming a necessity for the next generation of smart cars. With the entry of consumer electronics chip manufacturers like Qualcomm and the rise of domestic automotive chip manufacturers, the competitive landscape of in-car chips is quietly changing.
Power Competition in the CockpitIn the current wave of “software-defined vehicles,” massive data processing is occurring within today’s smart car cockpits—multi-display connections, audio processing, image processing (GPU), in-car Bluetooth/WiFi connections, and increasingly, multi-camera connections and AI processing (such as voice and visual interaction). The driving force behind these numerous functions lies in the cockpit SoC. This means it not only requires more powerful computing and integration capabilities but also enhanced artificial intelligence processing capabilities.From the most intuitive needs of terminal car manufacturers, for instance, Xiaopeng Motors understands the core of smart cars as “addition and subtraction,” meaning simplifying driving to make it easier; and adding features to enhance the cockpit experience.With the integration of more diverse internet ecosystem content and services, response speed, startup time, and connection speed have become key user experience indicators for cockpit systems, leading to increasingly higher demands for performance and computing power.“Why is there a growing demand for computing power in automotive cockpit chips? The reason is simple: we want to bring the performance of smartphones to vehicles, achieving smartphone-level performance for in-car applications. This requires a significant increase in chip computing power,” said Dr. Wang Kai, Chairman and CEO of Chip Engine Technology, to Jiwei Network. The development of automotive intelligence is making cars increasingly capable of performing smartphone functions, and the demand for supporting high-performance software, hardware, and components is set to explode, with the main control high-performance processors becoming standard in smart cars and the largest segment in terms of individual value on vehicles.According to Jiwei Network, the integration of smart cockpits mainly presents the characteristic of “one chip, multiple systems,” integrating LCD dashboards, HUD, in-car infotainment systems, DMS & OMS, voice recognition, and ADAS functions to provide users with a more intuitive and personalized driving experience.However, on a technical level, the requirements for smart cockpit chips are similar to those for consumer-grade chips, with their specificity primarily reflecting safety requirements such as lifespan and adaptability to in-car temperature and humidity environments, as well as stricter error rates and validation standards. Roland Berger predicts that within the next five years, the computing power of high-end smartphone chips will still support the computing power needs of the next generation of cockpit electronics. This is why consumer electronics chip manufacturers have a certain inherent advantage when entering the smart cockpit field. For example, Qualcomm’s previous generation cockpit chip, the Snapdragon 820A, was derived from the consumer-grade Snapdragon 820, and the latest generation SA8155P is based on the Snapdragon 855 design. Additionally, consumer chip manufacturers have formed scale advantages in consumer electronics fields like smartphones, enabling low-cost development. Therefore, consumer-grade chips have a natural advantage in being adapted for cockpit use after meeting automotive-grade requirements.The intelligent revolution in cockpits has opened up a vast potential space for in-car chips. As the consumer electronics industry enters a downward cycle, automotive chips are expected to become the next largest segment in the semiconductor industry after smartphones. This will initiate a major integration of two industrial giants: consumer electronics and automotive. Currently, manufacturers entering the automotive space are those who previously manufactured smartphones, while smartphone manufacturers are now entering the automotive sector, reflecting this two-way flow.In this regard, Shen Ziyu, Chairman and CEO of Yikaton Technology, Chairman of Chip Engine Technology, and Chairman of Meizu Technology, articulated the underlying industrial technology logic: “The key behind all intelligent terminals is computation. This requires good software, but also a strong hardware complement—that is, the chip. Currently, companies excelling in terminal production, such as Apple and Huawei, are deeply defining this key main control SoC chip, which is also the underlying logic of intelligent applications: ‘Human-Machine Interaction + OS + Chip.'”
Changing Landscape of the Cockpit Chip MarketFor a long time, the automotive cockpit chip market has been dominated by a few traditional automotive electronics manufacturers. Before 2015, the computing and control of in-car systems were mainly based on MCUs and low-performance SoCs, with major suppliers including Renesas, NXP, and Texas Instruments. These three companies occupied a significant market share during the initial stages of smart cockpit development. Subsequently, Intel enhanced its smart driving capabilities after acquiring Mobileye, while Qualcomm made a significant impact, steadily increasing its market share after the second generation of cockpit products and becoming the leading supplier in terms of shipment volume within a few years.The smart cockpit is reflected in the upgrades of ADAS and in-car entertainment systems, under the premise of the demands for intelligent and digital vehicle manufacturing, car manufacturers need to expand and merge individual ECUs. Therefore, SoCs that include CPUs, GPUs, ISPs, and DSPs have become the mainstream choice.From the current supply structure, the cockpit chips from the aforementioned traditional manufacturers mainly cover the mid-range and low-end markets. In contrast, consumer electronics chip manufacturers like Qualcomm, Nvidia, Samsung, Intel, and MediaTek are rapidly developing in the mid-to-high-end chip market due to their performance and iteration advantages. In recent years, as the demand for computing power has continuously increased, these consumer electronics chip manufacturers have been gaining market share in automotive mid-to-high-end cockpit SoC chips.A rough review of the smart vehicles launched in the past year or two reveals that most of the new smart models have high-performance smart cockpit chips supplied by a major smartphone chip manufacturer—Qualcomm. According to statistics from Yiou EqualOcean, about 30 models from mainstream domestic and international automakers, including Mercedes-Benz, Audi, Honda, Geely, Great Wall, BYD, Xiaopeng, and Li Auto, have announced the adoption of the Snapdragon automotive digital cockpit platform.The Snapdragon SA8155P chip released by Qualcomm in January 2019 (hereafter referred to as “8155”) is not only the world’s first automotive chip with a process of 7nm or below but also Qualcomm’s most widely used automotive chip. Since the Great Wall Mocha first launched with the 8155 in early 2021, this chip has nearly swept all smart vehicle models except BYD in a year and a half, including NIO ET7, 2022 NIO ES8, 2022 NIO ES6, 2022 EC6, Xiaopeng P5, Li Auto L9, WM Motor W6, Great Wall WEY Latte, GAC Aion LX, Geely Xingyue L, and Zhiji L7 among popular domestic models. As of now, Qualcomm has released four generations of smart cockpit chips: the first generation platform is the 28nm process Snapdragon 620A, the second generation platform is the 14nm process Snapdragon 820A, the third generation platform is the 7nm process Snapdragon SA8155P, and the fourth generation platform is the 5nm process Snapdragon SA8295P.Additionally, Samsung Electronics has also entered the smart cockpit SoC chip market in recent years. It is understood that Samsung’s smart cockpit SoCs mainly include Exynos 8890 and ExynosAuto V9, with relevant organizations stating that ExynosAuto V9’s overall performance is comparable to Qualcomm’s 8155.Moreover, Chinese manufacturers are also continuously deepening their involvement in the smart cockpit field. For instance, Huawei’s smart cockpit chip Kirin series includes the 710A released in 2020 and the Kirin 990A released in April last year. The 990A is currently used in the Arctic Fox Alpha S and several BYD models.The competitive landscape of smart cockpit chips has changed with the influx of consumer electronics chip manufacturers. At the same time, there are also local automotive chip startups that are gaining capital favor and rising, which will be a significant variable. In the past two years, domestic manufacturers like Chip Engine, Chip Chaser, Four-Dimensional Map (Jiefa), and Rockchip have successively launched smart cockpit chips aimed at the mid-to-high-end market. Among them, Chip Engine’s 7nm cockpit chip “Dragon Eagle No. 1” targets the 8155 and is the first domestically produced automotive-grade 7nm smart cockpit chip. Currently, the testing and verification of this chip in mass production models have been gradually completed, with mass production expected in the second half of this year.
Breakthrough in the Chinese MarketAccording to monitoring data from the Gao Gong Intelligent Automotive Research Institute, in 2021, the proportion of passenger cars delivered in the Chinese market equipped with infotainment systems exceeded 80%, with traditional low-performance chips like NXP, TI, Allwinner, and Jiefa accounting for over 50%. This means there is a huge market for high-performance cockpit SoCs to replace traditional chips. It is foreseeable that with the accelerated evolution of the vehicle’s electronic and electrical architecture from distributed to centralized, traditional low-performance chips will be rapidly replaced by high-performance cockpit SoCs in the near future.Industry insiders point out that in the short term, cockpits will consist of multiple SoC chips, each responsible for different modules’ computing tasks. In the long term, as the direct touchpoint for human-vehicle interaction, the smart cockpit’s functionality will further evolve. With the penetration of streaming media rearview mirrors, HUD functions, and the enhancement of display resolution, higher demands for chip computing power will arise, promoting the evolution of computing chips from simple MCUs to higher-performance SoCs.Simultaneously, on a global scale, the penetration speed of smart cockpits is currently faster in the Chinese market than globally. Data from IHS indicates that the penetration rate of smart cockpits in the Chinese market was 48.8% in 2020, and it is expected to exceed 75% by 2025 (while the global penetration rate will be 59.4%), showing rapid growth. UBS also predicts that with policy support, market maturation, and technological advancement, the scale of the domestic cockpit electronics market is expected to reach nearly 150 billion yuan by 2025, with a CAGR of 15% from 2020 to 2025. UBS notes that as autonomous driving progresses to higher levels, it can significantly enhance the incremental hardware/software value per vehicle, with the hardware/software value of L4/L5 level vehicles potentially being 8 times/4 times that of L1/L2 level vehicles.
What Opportunities Do Domestic Manufacturers Have?China International Capital Corporation (CICC) has outlined the development of domestic manufacturers in the smart cockpit chip market, indicating that the domestic cockpit chip market is still in its early stages. Taking Horizon’s Journey 2 released in 2020 as a starting point, it has been just over two years, revealing a gap of at least five years compared to overseas markets (close to a complete development cycle for automotive intelligent chips). In terms of entrants, the domestic market has attracted automotive AI companies, consumer chip manufacturers, and startup automotive chip manufacturers, most of which are relatively new and have small revenue scales. Among them, automotive AI companies like Horizon and Black Sesame Intelligence have products applicable in both driving and cockpit areas; consumer chip manufacturers like Huawei and Allwinner have extensive layouts in smartphones, computers, smart homes, and communications. Additionally, there are startup teams like Chip Chaser and Chip Engine focused on automotive-grade chips.Overall, the current competitive landscape of domestic cockpit chips is still not finalized. Among domestic manufacturers, only a few chips have practical applications,such as Huawei’s Kirin 990A used in BAIC’s Arcfox αS; Horizon’s Journey 2 has already been deployed in Changan’s UNI-K; Chip Engine Technology is bound to Geely, but no domestic cockpit chip manufacturer has emerged with a particularly high market share, and mainstream cockpit domain controllers still primarily use overseas brands.Main Suppliers of Domestic Cockpit Chips
Data source: Company websites, CICC Research DepartmentHowever, after experiencing the automotive chip supply shortage over the past two years, there is hope to compel domestic brand car manufacturers to develop a multi-supplier strategy in the core chip segment, actively promoting the testing and localization of domestic suppliers. This is a rare “entry” opportunity for domestic manufacturers.Nevertheless, moving towards higher computing power and more advanced processes for high-performance smart cockpit SoCs is essentially a determined direction. Jiwei Consulting General Manager Han Xiaomin pointed out that as automotive intelligence deepens, the demand for chip computing power and performance is bound to increase, “The previous generation of 14nm process cockpit chips is now intuitively difficult to support. Just like smartphones stack scores and parameters, computing power must be increased.” He noted that, in addition, the alignment of chip manufacturers’ product timelines with car manufacturers’ demands will be key to future competition.Image source: NetworkMore Significant NewsPlease Click to EnterAijiwe Mini Program Or Download Aijiwe APP to Read
