The Race for Computing Power 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 new 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-vehicle chip market is quietly changing.Author｜Gan Ye Editor｜Du ShaJiwei Network·Ai Jiwei APP, available for download in major app storesAccording to Jiwei Network, from the driver’s cockpit to smart spaces, under the grand backdrop of “software-defined vehicles”, car cockpits have become the next battleground for global chip manufacturers. In the past two years, every new model of smart electric vehicle launched has highlighted its performance in smart cockpits, automatic driving assistance systems, human-machine interaction, and the smoothness of in-car systems as key selling points. Recently, at the highly anticipated launch event of the Li Auto L9, a third of the time was dedicated to introducing its “smart space”.The quality of these product experiences largely depends on a small chip. At the same time, applications in car cockpits are increasingly resembling those in smartphones, with high-performance SoC chips becoming a necessity for the new 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-vehicle chips is quietly changing.
Competition for Computing Power in CockpitsIn the current wave of “software-defined vehicles”, massive data processing is occurring in today’s smart car cockpits—multiple display connections, audio processing, image processing (GPU), in-car Bluetooth/WiFi connections, and increasingly more multi-camera connections and AI processing (such as voice and visual interaction). The driving force behind these functionalities lies in the cockpit SoC. This means that it not only requires more powerful computing capabilities and integration capabilities but also stronger artificial intelligence processing capabilities.From the most direct needs of terminal car manufacturers, for example, Xiaopeng Motors understands the core of smart cars as “addition and subtraction”, that is, simplifying driving to make it easier; adding to the cockpit space experience to make it more enjoyable.With the integration of more rich internet ecosystem content and services, response speed, startup time, and connection speed have become key user experience metrics emphasized by cockpit systems, leading to increasingly high demands for performance and computing power.“The reason why automotive cockpit chips require higher computing power is simple: it is to bring the performance of smartphones into 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 ChipQing Technology, to Jiwei Network, pointing out that the development of automotive intelligence is making cars increasingly capable of performing functions similar to smartphones. The demand for high-performance software, hardware, and components will explode, with high-performance main control processors becoming standard in smart cars and becoming the most valuable segment in automotive units.According to Jiwei Network, the integration of smart cockpits mainly presents a characteristic of “one chip, multiple systems”, integrating LCD instruments, 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 uniqueness mainly reflected in safety requirements such as lifespan, adaptability to in-vehicle temperature and humidity environments, and stricter error rates and verification standards. Roland Berger predicts that within the next five years, the computing power of high-end smartphone chips will still support the next generation of cockpit electronic computing power needs. This is also why consumer electronics chip manufacturers have a certain inherent advantage in entering the smart cockpit field. For example, Qualcomm’s previous generation cockpit chip Snapdragon 820A is derived from the consumer-grade chip Snapdragon 820, and the latest generation SA8155P is designed based on Snapdragon 855. Additionally, consumer chip manufacturers have already established scale advantages in the fields of smartphones and other consumer electronics, enabling low-cost development. Therefore, consumer-grade chips have a natural advantage in being transplanted into the cockpit field after meeting automotive-grade requirements.The revolution in cockpit intelligence opens up a huge potential space for in-vehicle 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 significant integration of the consumer electronics and automotive industries. Currently, manufacturers entering the automotive space are creating smartphones, while those in the smartphone industry are also entering the automotive space, reflecting this trend of mutual flow.In this regard, Shen Ziyu, Chairman and CEO of Yikaton Technology, Chairman of ChipQing Technology, and Chairman of Meizu Technology, articulated the underlying industrial technology logic: “Behind every intelligent terminal, computation is key. This requires good software, but also needs the cooperation of hardware—that is, the chip. Currently, manufacturers that excel 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, namely ‘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 computation and control of in-vehicle systems were mainly based on MCUs and low-performance SoCs, with major suppliers being Renesas, NXP, and Texas Instruments. These three companies occupied a significant share during the early stages of smart cockpit development. Afterward, Intel enhanced its capabilities in smart driving after acquiring Mobileye, while Qualcomm made a significant impact, steadily increasing its market share after the second generation of cockpit products, becoming the leading vendor in terms of shipment volume in a few years.The smart cockpit is reflected in the upgrades of ADAS and in-car entertainment systems. Under the premise of intelligent and digital vehicle manufacturing requirements, car manufacturers need to expand and merge individual ECUs. Therefore, SoCs containing 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. Meanwhile, consumer electronics chip manufacturers such as 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 seen their market share in automotive mid-to-high-end cockpit SoC chips continue to grow.By roughly sorting through the smart vehicles launched in the past year or two, it can be observed that most new smart models released recently have high-performance smart cockpit chips provided by a major smartphone chip manufacturer—Qualcomm. According to statistics from EqualOcean, about 30 models from major domestic and foreign car manufacturers, including Mercedes-Benz, Audi, Honda, Geely, Great Wall, BYD, Xiaopeng, and Li Auto, have announced that they will be equipped with the Snapdragon automotive digital cockpit platform.The Snapdragon SA8155P chip released by Qualcomm in January 2019 (hereinafter referred to as “8155”) is not only the world’s first automotive chip with a process of 7nm or below but also the most widely used automotive chip by Qualcomm. Since the Great Wall Mocha first launched with the 8155 chip at the beginning of 2021, this chip has almost swept all smart car 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 W6, Great Wall WEY Latte, GAC Aion LX, Geely Xingyue L, and Zhiji L7, among other popular domestic models. So far, Qualcomm has released four generations of smart cockpit chips: the first generation platform 28nm process Snapdragon 620A, the second generation platform 14nm process Snapdragon 820A, the third generation platform 7nm process Snapdragon SA8155P, and the fourth generation platform 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 institutions stating that the overall performance of ExynosAuto V9 can match Qualcomm’s 8155.Moreover, domestic manufacturers are also continuously deepening their involvement in the smart cockpit field. For instance, Huawei’s smart cockpit chip Kirin series includes its 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 some models from BYD.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 favor from capital and are emerging as a significant variable. In the past two years, local manufacturers such as ChipQing, ChipChase, Four-Dimensional Map (Jiefa), and Rockchip have successively launched smart cockpit chips aimed at the mid-to-high-end market. Among them, ChipQing’s 7nm cockpit chip “Dragon Eagle One” targets the 8155 and is the first domestically produced automotive-grade 7nm smart cockpit chip. Currently, testing and verification work for this chip in mass production vehicles has been gradually completed, with mass production expected in the second half of this year.
Breaking Through the Chinese MarketAccording to monitoring data from the High-tech Intelligent Automotive Research Institute, in 2021, the proportion of passenger cars in the Chinese market equipped with infotainment systems exceeded 80%, among which traditional low-performance chips from NXP, TI, Allwinner, and Jiefa accounted for more than 50%. This indicates a huge market for high-performance cockpit SoCs to replace existing solutions. It is foreseeable that as the electronic and electrical architecture of vehicles accelerates from distributed to centralized evolution, 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, the cockpit will consist of multiple SoC chips, each responsible for different module computation tasks. In the long term, as the smart cockpit serves as the direct touchpoint for human-vehicle interaction, its functions will further evolve. With the penetration of streaming media rearview mirrors, HUD functions, and improved display resolutions, higher demands for chip computing power will arise, promoting the evolution of computing chips from simple MCUs to higher-performance SoCs.At the same time, globally, the penetration speed of cockpit intelligence is currently faster in the Chinese market than in the world. IHS data indicates that the penetration rate of smart cockpits in the Chinese market was 48.8% in 2020, and it is expected to reach over 75% by 2025 (while the global penetration rate will be 59.4%), showing a rapid growth trend. UBS also predicts that with policy support, market maturation, and technological advancements, the market size of domestic cockpit electronics is expected to reach nearly 150 billion yuan by 2025, with a CAGR of 15% from 2020 to 2025. UBS points out that as autonomous driving progresses to higher levels, it will 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 Exist for Domestic Manufacturers?China International Capital Corporation (CICC) has summarized the development of domestic manufacturers in smart cockpit chips, indicating that the domestic cockpit chip market is still in its early stages. Starting from Horizon’s release of the Journey 2 in 2020, there has been only over two years of development, which indicates a gap of at least five years with overseas markets (nearly a complete cycle of automotive intelligent chip development); regarding the entering manufacturers, the domestic market has attracted automotive AI companies, consumer chip manufacturers, and startup automotive chip manufacturers, most of which are newly established and have small revenue scales. Among them, automotive AI companies such as Horizon and Black Sesame Smart have products that can be used in both driving and cockpit fields; consumer chip manufacturers like Huawei and Allwinner Technology have extensive layouts in smartphones, computers, smart homes, and communications. Additionally, there are startup teams like ChipChase Technology and ChipQing Technology focusing on automotive-grade chips.Overall, the current competitive landscape of domestic cockpit chips has not yet solidified. Among domestic manufacturers, only a few chips have landed in practical scenarios,such as Huawei’s Kirin 990A equipped in BAIC’s Arcfox αS; Horizon’s Journey 2 has already landed in Changan’s UNI-K; ChipQing Technology has partnered with Geely, but there has not yet been a domestic cockpit chip manufacturer with particularly high market share, and mainstream cockpit domain controllers still primarily use overseas brands.Main Suppliers of Domestic Cockpit Chips
Source: Company websites, CICC Research DepartmentHowever, after experiencing the automotive chip supply shortage over the past two years, it is expected to force domestic brand car manufacturers to develop a multi-supplier strategy in core chip segments, actively promoting the testing and qualification of domestic suppliers. This is a rare “entry” opportunity for domestic manufacturers.Nevertheless, the move towards higher computing power and more advanced processes for high-performance smart cockpit SoCs is basically a determined direction. Han Xiaomin, General Manager of Jiwei Consulting, pointed out that as automotive intelligence deepens, the demand for chip computing power and performance is bound to increase, “The previous generation 14nm process cockpit chips are now intuitively difficult to support. Just like smartphones that stack performance scores and parameters, computing power must be improved.” He noted that the alignment of chip manufacturers’ product timelines with car manufacturers’ needs will be the key to competition going forward.Image Source｜NetworkMore Major NewsPlease Click to EnterAi Jiwei Mini Program Or Download Ai Jiwei APP to Read
