Taking stock of the mobile phone chip market in 2017, while Big Brother Qualcomm is trapped in Broadcom's M & A pursuit, the 'bargain' with the Dutch chipmaker NXP NXP is continuing, and the latter is a leader in the automotive processor business. The Qualcomm in the field of mobile phones, the old rival MediaTek also continued to force in the field of automotive electronics, and the battlefield at the focus of the European car companies and the domestic Internet 'made the new forces' According to the official said MediaTek investment in the field of automotive electronics Accounting for about 30% of the overall investment, second only to mobile phone chip direction.
In addition, although Huawei HiSilicon did not publicly announce any plans for smart cars, but from the official announcement that 'every year will invest hundreds of millions of yuan for research and development in the field of car networking' attitude, Huawei's chip in the car Technical reserves will not be missing.
There are many opportunities for automotive electronics chips. For the time being, electric vehicles and self-driving cars, for example, will need high-quality and high-safety semiconductor components to meet the growing demand for electric vehicles and self-driving vehicles. " State Extension Optoelectronics Research Institute analyst Yao Jiayang told the first financial reporter, taking self-driving as an example, such as car radar, car networking, automotive information, automotive sensors, etc., will be a very important opportunity for semiconductor manufacturers point .
But for these handset chip players, the challenge of new entrants does not come merely from 'cross-border'. "There are already a lot of semiconductor suppliers involved in smart cars, including NXP-fancy NXP, Infineon, Semiconductor, Renesas and other companies, and have a solid customer relationship in the market, in the initial entry of mobile phone chips, in principle, there will not be many advantages. "Yao Jia Yang told reporters.
However, in the face of such a large industry cake, I believe no one does not go all out.
Looking for partners
The automotive industry is undergoing a profound change that will change as the car becomes a computer with four wheels.
From the industry structure, the past dominated the automotive semiconductor market, mainly NXP, Infineon, STMicroelectronics, Renesas and other companies, as the market is relatively stable, outsiders have no chance to enter .But with ADAS, automatic driving The rise of technology and the explosion in demand for computing and data-processing capabilities by smart cars have given offensive reasons for technology companies that are already interested in this market.
With the smart phone market growth momentum began to slow down, the mobile phone chip industry began to diversify, it is already an inevitable thing to Qualcomm, for example, as early as three to four years ago, already started to put resources to the Internet of Things , Security monitoring and drone and other fields, car networking is a huge market. 'Yao Jia Yang told reporters that from the automotive electronics, mobile chip companies have LTE and WiFi technologies at this stage, can be regarded as advantages one.
In fact, Qualcomm introduced the car version of the Snapdragon 820A processor as early as 2016 at the Consumer Electronics Show, though it's also called the 820, but it's a system-on-chip designed specifically for cars with performance and mobility The Snapdragon 820 is pretty much the same and has the LTE connectivity module, and in September 2017 Qualcomm officially released the 9150C-V2X chipset to allow cars to talk to each other, and by the end of the year, unmanned vehicles equipped with Qualcomm chips have been allowed In the United States on the road test.
Technology stack can not guarantee success in the market.Media and Deputy General Manager Xu Jingquan told reporters that the difference is that with the mobile phone business, the car is still a strong B2B properties of the industry, a cell phone messed up, You can come back in six months, but the car may be two to three years, implying that the pry open the traditional car market is not an easy task.
And, the car's front-loading market is a high threshold, high degree of trust, need to work with program makers to intervene in the car market early product development, for handset chip makers, this is not easy .Then look for more reliable Partners have become the inevitable choice in the face of business.
Earlier, the German car makers Audi, BMW and Daimler announced their alliance with Ericsson, Huawei, Intel, Nokia and Qualcomm to form a 5G car alliance to accelerate the development of interconnected devices for autonomous vehicles. In China, there are also "China Automotive Electronics Industry Ecology Alliance ', Qualcomm, Huawei and other incoming.
MediaTek is also looking for more partners, including key focus with the European car companies and head solutions company to cooperate, the other is also in the Mainland and BAT and other Internet companies to try more cooperation. 'Xu Jingquan told reporters that at present MediaTek Has been in contact with businesses in the BAT As for the release of smart cars, he revealed that the depot-class products are expected to be delivered in 2018.
Yao Jia Yang believes that, in addition to the cooperation of car prices, handset chip makers can get AEC-Q100 certification is also very important vehicle safety conditions, if the certification can be more easily access to first-line components suppliers favor.
Can pry car chip market?
Automotive semiconductor market growth alarming rate in recent years.
Global semiconductor industry research released by ICInsights, a market research institute, shows that the output value of automotive semiconductors grows rapidly at 10.8% per annum from 2013 to 2018. However, Qualcomm, MediaTek, and others want to duplicate their output value in consumer electronics Splendid field will not be easy.
Traditional chip companies are fighting back.
Traditional car chip companies such as Renesas and STMicroelectronics have also introduced their own solutions and Bosch set up a driver services division in its early years. In addition to providing a full range of ADAS solutions to multiple companies, Work with map providers.
According to Bosch's introduction, the high-precision map with Bosch road feature location function can be successfully integrated into the autonomous driving vehicle and achieve precise positioning. Testing and verification of highway traffic conditions is about to begin in early 2018 with the map business.
As well as the Nvidia and Intel cut from the data end. Thanks to its GPU technology, NVIDIA introduced a variety of vehicle computing platform for 2017 AI technology such as depth learning, and pulled Audi and other companies ready to be in the amount of around 2020 While Intel is also stepping up its investment in autopilot and pulling BMW up with the ADAS oligarch Mobileye to set up the car alliance and subsequently move Mobileye into the bag.
At the same time, dozens of startups around the world are hoping for a slice of the world, including Horizon, Wo Duo, Wise, Tucson, King Chi, nuTonomy, Plus.ai, drive.ai, AutoX Other companies.
More importantly, mobile chip makers also have their own difficulties.
At present, Qualcomm acquired NXP Semiconductors in addition to the price not yet settled, but also need the approval of the relevant antitrust agencies, as both sides failed to provide the relevant documents, the EU antitrust agency in June 2017 to suspend the acquisition Antitrust Review After the relevant materials have been provided, the EU will resume its antitrust review, but the EU's anti-monopoly review still has certain uncertainties. The EU had previously worried that Qualcomm's acquisition of NXP Semiconductors will change the wisdom Pu semiconductor current patent licensing methods, raising the cost of patent licensing, weakening the competitiveness of competitors.
As for MediaTek, automotive business as a new business needs more sustained investment, the current mobile phone chip market turning point in a critical moment, whether to take more radical market action is to test the wisdom of managers.
Yao Jia Yang told reporters that the mobile phone chip companies turned to the automotive chip industry is the pursuit of revenue growth and other financial indicators, but also need to consider the hidden risks in the market.