Members Of The NPC And CPPCC Members' Opinions On Strengthening "Core": How Can Domestic Car Chips Break The Situation?

Since the fourth quarter of 2020, the "chip shortage" that has spread to the global automobile industry continues to ferment. A few days ago, the China Automobile Industry Association predicted that the problem of chip shortage will continue for more than half a year in the future. It is expected that the supply of automotive chips will be tight before and loose after 2021.

As a result, suggestions to solve the shortage of chip supply and promote the industrialization of domestic chips have also appeared in the proposals and motions of several members of the NPC and CPPCC this year.

With the rapid development of automobile industry, China has always been a big consumer of chips and semiconductors. However, foreign chip manufacturers still occupy most of the market share. Data shows that in 2020, American, European and Japanese companies accounted for more than 90% of the market share of automotive chips. After several years of investment and development, domestic automotive main chip companies have been recognized by some main engine manufacturers, but the market share is still less than 5%.

Zhu Huarong, deputy to the National People's Congress and Secretary of the Party committee of Chang'an Automobile, pointed out that as the core chips of automobiles mainly rely on imports, with the changing international situation, the increasing tension of global semiconductor raw materials and production capacity, and the impact of the new crown epidemic on the supply chain, there is a risk of automobile chips being cut off at any time, which will become a phased and structural problem for a long time, and the automobile chips will gradually become China The main "neck sticking" link in the development of automobile industry.

At the same time, compared with consumer chips, automotive semiconductors have strict performance requirements. At present, domestic vehicle specification level chips still have problems such as small vehicle application scale, long vehicle regulation certification cycle, low technology added value, and high dependence of upstream industries. However, facing the production of key components and major chips in the fields of new energy source, three electric systems, chassis electronic control, automatic driving and other fields by foreign-funded enterprises Due to the blockade of technology, China's independent automobile chip industry is scattered in the fields of low added value and low reliability.

"At present, we have seen the impact of domestic automobile enterprises on the industrial chain. Over the years, why are these key components dominated by foreign countries? First, there is a lack of innovation at the bottom, and the second is that the market scale is too small. " On March 8, Xu Jian, chief ecological officer of horizon, said in an interview with 21st century economic reporter, "compared with mobile phones and consumer electronics products, the number of chips in the automobile industry is short of market scale, and the investment has no good return. In this state, the whole industry chain lacks layout, which is a lesson."

In Xu Jian's view, it is an objective fact that China is still in the follow-up stage in terms of medium and high-end chips.

"Chip design, R & D, production, testing and verification to the final scale application is a very complex system engineering, with long cycle, large investment and high risk. Therefore, it needs long-term technical experience accumulation, which can not be achieved overnight. Foreign countries have been deeply engaged in this field for many years, but China started late. Therefore, in the field of automotive chips, international enterprises have more first mover advantages. " Xu Jian told reporters.

How to break the "neck" technology of automobile chips, ensure the supply of chips, and strengthen the construction of the industry chain of key auto parts have also become the focus of the NPC and CPPCC representatives.

Suggestions from representatives of automobile enterprises to strengthen "core"

According to the public information, four senior executives of automobile enterprises put forward suggestions related to chips in the two sessions: Zhu Huarong, Secretary of the Party committee of Changan Automobile Group, Zeng Qinghong, Secretary of the Party committee of GAC group, Chen Hong, Secretary of the Party committee of SAIC, and Yin Tongyue, Secretary of the Party committee of Chery Automobile Co., Ltd., are all related to chips.

According to the reporter's analysis, the relevant suggestions put forward by the above-mentioned representatives mainly focus on the following three aspects: 1

First, increase the support of policies and funds. Zhu Huarong suggested that on the basis of ensuring the stable supply of the industrial chain, the state should introduce positive policies to promote the localization of automobile chips and maintain the safety of the automobile supply chain; Zeng Qinghong suggested to increase the precise support for the automobile electronic industry chain, formulate and implement special incentive measures for automobile semiconductors and key electronic components, so as to change the current situation that domestic chip investment is not positive.

Second, speed up the formulation and introduction of standards. Zhu Huarong suggested to strengthen the standard formulation, set up the admittance threshold, ensure that the semiconductor products meet the standard, and let the vehicle enterprises dare to use the domestic chips.

Third, we should promote the integration of OEMs and chip companies, and encourage car companies to use domestic chips. Zhu Huarong suggested supporting OEMs to carry out customized research and development of automobile chips with domestic automobile chip manufacturers in the process of vehicle development, and improve the quality and supply stability of automobile chips through deep cooperation; Yin Tongyue suggested strengthening the industrial ecological integration, giving policy incentives and financial support in the industrial chain ecology, and promoting the integrated development of chip ecology, component ecology and vehicle ecology 。

Chen Hong suggested that the top-level design route of "two-step" should be formulated to realize the power conversion from external to internal.

It is worth noting that the relevant departments have accelerated the layout in promoting the cooperation between OEMs and domestic automotive chip manufacturers in the process of vehicle development.

On February 26, the electronic information department of the Ministry of industry and information technology and the first Department of equipment industry guided China's automobile chip industry innovation strategic alliance to prepare the automobile semiconductor supply and demand docking manual, actively guided and supported the development of automobile semiconductor industry, and supported enterprises to continuously improve the supply capacity of integrated circuits.

How can domestic chips break through?

"Automobile intellectualization is the general trend. Automobile enterprises believe that the product direction is intelligent cars. However, in order to improve the intelligence of automobiles and enhance the consumers' perception of intelligence, they must form a deep union with the underlying chip algorithm, and it should be able to iterate continuously and enable it. This is the trend. "Xu Jian pointed out that in order to promote the industrial integration of automobile enterprises and chip enterprises, the key is cooperative development and common definition.

In Xu Jian's opinion, in order to lay out the chip industry from the perspective of independent and controllable industrial chain, we should pay attention to the scientific layout of the chip industry from the perspectives of bottom R & D, relevant standards and industrial ecology, so as to promote the integration of chip industry and automobile industry.

"First, we should strengthen research and development at the bottom and improve our core competitiveness. Car size chip is the Everest in the artificial intelligence industry. It takes at least 24 to 36 months for a car size chip from R & D to final mass production, which requires the whole industry to strengthen the underlying R & D and long-term layout in all parties. Second, it is more important to promote the synergy and common development of the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain. We will promote the integration of emerging technologies and the automotive industry, new electronic technology and the automotive industry, and encourage the opening of the development paradigm and development model of the automotive industry. " Xu Jian told reporters.

In addition, to speed up the development of automotive chip industry, we must speed up the formulation of relevant standards.

"In terms of the government's industrial policy, it's very important that standards come first. What we lack now is not only the chip of car specifications, but also the formulation of standards for smart cars." Xu Jian said.

Although domestic car chip enterprises started late, Xu Jian thinks that automotive intelligent chips are different from traditional chips. AI chips are driven by scenes, data and algorithms, and need collaborative optimization of algorithm and hardware design. On this runway, China has a great opportunity.

"Compared with international giants, domestic chip enterprises have the advantage of local service. When the level of automatic driving is higher and higher, its system complexity and software complexity will increase dramatically. At this time, it is more necessary for the original chip manufacturer to provide close and personal support services for the vehicle manufacturer. Such as horizon and other domestic chip companies have the advantage of closer physical distance to the host plant. In addition, the solutions for driving conditions and consumer demand in the Chinese market can be used as a breakthrough for Chinese automobile enterprises in market competition. " Xu Jian finally said. Du qiaomei, reporting group of the National People's Congress and the National People's Congress of Nanfang finance and economics group, reports from Beijing