Recently, Gree Group announced no dividends this year, will invest at least 50 billion yuan in funds, independent research and development of chips to protect the industrial safety of home appliances. Gree as the leading company in the field of home appliances, announced the news into the integrated circuit industry, subject to great industry Concern and discussion. What are the characteristics of the home appliance chip industry chain? What opportunities and challenges do China's home appliance chip development face? These issues are worth exploring in depth.
Domestic appliance chip application ratio is less than 10%
First, the application requirements for chips in home appliances are relatively low. Compared with mobile phones, automobiles, and industrial control, home appliances have lower requirements for chip performance and technology. For example, household appliances control parts do not need to process information because they require less information. Using high-end processors such as the CPU, the MCU processor is mainly used. In terms of power products, the voltage that a home appliance can withstand when it is powered off and the current that can be conducted when it is turned on are low, and a low-voltage-regulated MOSFET device can be used. To IGBT devices that regulate voltages above 600V. In terms of power management, relative to the stringent requirements of mobile phones for high power integration and low power consumption, the power supply design in home appliances can be implemented using conventional AC/DC chips. Communication chips, home In general, Bluetooth or WiFi technology is used to achieve short-distance connection. No high-frequency RF chip is needed in mobile phones or base stations, and the design level is relatively low.
The second is that the home appliance chip has formed a stable competitive pattern. The global high-end home appliance chips have been basically monopolized by Renesas, NXP, STMicroelectronics, Texas Instruments, Infineon and other companies, and the product line is complete and complete, providing overall home appliance chip solutions. Project. In the field of 32-bit MCU chips, the top five companies Renesas, NXP, STMicroelectronics, Infineon, and Texas Instruments account for nearly 80% of the market share. Power Management ICs, Texas Instruments, ADI, ON Semiconductor, Maxim, Power Integrations' top five companies accounted for more than half of the market share. Although domestic home appliance chip companies have made some progress, but from the overall situation of the home appliance industry, the proportion of domestic chip applications is less than 10%.
Third, the industry chain is mature and stable, and the right to dismantling the whole machine company is relatively large. The traditional household appliance industry chain has been very mature and stable, and the cooperation mode of each link is relatively fixed. The upstream international mature chip companies mainly adopt the business model of taking small profits in the field of home appliances. Compared with raw material companies, they are relatively fragmented, and their bargaining power and profitability are relatively low. The medium-sized enterprises in the mid-stream are usually large-scale enterprises and have ample competition in the industry. They have strong discourse power over the industry chain control and chip procurement, and mainly reflect the product performance through different chips. Promote and differentiate the competition. At present domestic enterprises form a global monopolistic advantage in the field of household appliances. Sales revenues of Midea, Haier, Gree, TCL, etc. all approach or exceed 100 billion yuan, of which Midea's and Gree's net profits reached 10 billion yuan.
Cultivating independent industrial chains is an important issue
First, China is the world’s largest home appliance production base. China is an important household appliance chip application market in the world. The annual output of household appliances such as air conditioners, televisions, refrigerators, and washing machines ranks among the top in the world. China’s air conditioner output accounts for more than 80% of the world’s total output. In 2017, it reached 180 million units, a significant year-on-year increase of 25.8%. TV production accounted for 70% of the world's total, and it was 170 million units in 2017, an increase of 9.3% year-on-year. Refrigerator and washing machine production remained relatively stable. The output of these four categories of household appliances exceeded 2017 in 2017. Billion Taiwan, a year-on-year increase of 11.3%. Huge total output has brought huge chip market demand. According to statistics from the Citi think-tank, the domestic chip market for household appliances is about RMB 50 billion. The top three chips are MCUs, analog chips. With power chips, the market share was 20.4%, 19.6% and 10.6%, respectively.
The second is the intelligentization of home appliances, and the trend of energy conservation has led to a continuous increase in chip content. Compared to traditional home appliances, smart appliances integrate Internet of Things, cloud computing, big data and other technologies, processor chips, sensors, communication connection chips, audio and video, etc. The demand for performance and quantity of chip products has risen rapidly. It is expected that the proportion of chips in home appliances will increase from 2% in current home appliances (based on traditional household appliances) to 4% in 2020. With the continuous penetration of smart home appliances, the home appliance market will grow over the next 5 years. The market will maintain a compound annual growth rate of at least 10%. If the current home appliance chip market uses domestic chips by 50%, the market space of domestic chip companies can reach 25 billion yuan. With the development of smart appliances, the chip market space will increase year by year. .
Thirdly, supply chain security has become an important direction for the development of complete machines. The recent ZTE event sounded the alarm for domestic machine companies, and the cultivation of independent industrial chains became an important issue. Self-developed chips are conducive to the security of the company's supply chain, and at the same time Outsourcing of chip bargaining power by enterprises to build the focus of core competitiveness. In fact, due to the company's huge market demand for its own chips, domestic companies such as Haier, TCL, Hisense, Changhong entered the chip market a few years ago. Haier involved in integrated circuits The industry was earlier. In 2000, Shanghai Haier and Beijing Haier integrated circuit design companies were established to engage in R&D and design of MCU and other products. Shanghai Haier IC Co., Ltd. was acquired by Neusoft Carrier in 2015. In 2017, Gree set up research institute began to develop chips At present, there are two MCU chips used in their own air conditioners, installed capacity of more than 10,000 units, the next step will continue to develop WIFI, Bluetooth and other wireless connection chips.
Fourthly, China has already established a certain industrial base in the area of home appliance chips, and has realized its application in low-end home appliances and small home appliances. In terms of MCU chips, Zhongying Electronics and Shanghai Smart Microelectronics have achieved market share in soybean milk and microwave ovens. In terms of power management chips, there are a large number of small and medium-sized enterprises in China, including Si Lijie, Jingfeng, Silan Micro, and others to achieve the shipment of analog power management chips. In connection with the chip, the new shoreline WiFi has fully entered the smart home area. Shipment volume reached 10 million. MEMS sensor, Goer shares occupy the market first in the field of miniature microphones, occupy the second place in the market of miniature loudspeakers.
The gap between technological level and international advanced is obvious
First, the use of domestic chips in home appliances machine power is insufficient. On the one hand, chip costs in home appliances account for less than 3% of the cost of the whole machine. Compared with consumer electronics, home appliance companies are insensitive to chip costs, and therefore are more willing to adopt mature products from international companies. On the other hand, domestic chips need to be revalidated for technical and reliability verification. Household appliance companies need to pay a certain amount of trial and verification costs. At the same time, from the perspective of brand building, home appliance companies pay more attention to brand building, and maintain the high quality and stability of product quality. Good, low-failure brand image, home appliance companies use more foreign chips.
Second, there is still a gap between the level of domestic home appliance chip technology and international companies. Domestic home appliance MCUs, power management, connection chips, power devices and other products have been used in medium and low-end home appliances, but the gap between product technology and international advanced level is still very clear. There are more than 10 domestic MCU products, but the main products are low-end 4-bit and 8-bit MCU products. Only a very few manufacturers mass-produce 32-bit MCU products. Power management chips, domestic companies in high-end power management chips, low-voltage IGBTs, etc. Device technology gaps. In terms of sensor modules, the reliability of domestic sensors is 1-2 orders of magnitude lower than that of similar foreign products. No series, standard and unified interfaces have yet to be formed. Most of the domestic appliance chip companies have not been established for a long time and are of small scale. High-end MCU in the field of household appliances, analog device product technology is difficult, requires a large R & D investment and a long time of technology accumulation, the domestic chip has not yet made a breakthrough.
Thirdly, there is insufficient interaction between domestic home appliances and chips. In order to realize the differentiation of home appliances and the competitiveness of enterprises, the entire company should start cooperation with the chip companies from functional definition, technology research and development, etc. to achieve rapid market or product differentiation. Currently, there are few interactions between the whole machine and the chip companies in China. The overall situation is that they have developed independently. The main reason is that the huge volume of domestic home appliance companies and the tiny size of chip companies have led to difficulties in equal dialogue between the two companies. At the level of 100 billion yuan, the income of the leading companies in the chip field is only 3-4 billion yuan. The difference between the two is quite large and it is difficult to achieve interaction.
Encourage domestic home appliances companies to develop chips
First, continue to encourage domestic home appliances companies to develop their own chips. Give full play to the advantages of large-scale home appliance companies in capital and use applications as the traction. Encourage domestic Gree, Midea and other companies to adopt chip subsidiaries or R&D departments to integrate domestic resources and strengthen Overseas enterprises cooperate to perfect the supply chain of home appliance companies, cultivate a complete product line, meet the demand for product performance, and have outstanding cost performance advantages. It is a leading global large-scale home appliance chip company.
The second is to strengthen the close cooperative relationship between home appliance companies and chip companies. Give full play to the advantages of large domestic appliances application market and large demand. Encourage home appliance application companies to invest in chip design companies, or establish joint ventures with chip companies to establish R&D centers, and strengthen the entire industry with capital as a link. Machines and chips to achieve linkage, promote domestic home appliance chip technology and application level.
The third is to strengthen capital support for the field of home appliance chips. Domestic prominent home appliance industry advantages, coupled with the overall relatively low performance characteristics of home appliances chip performance, making the home appliance industry in the short term is the most likely to achieve the application of domestic chip scale application Intensifying the attention of the capital to home appliance chips, promoting domestic home appliance chip companies to strengthen product development, realizing the development from low to medium-end products to high-end products, and improving the domestic home appliance industry ecology.