According to certain "industry experts" the power management chips at micron level are stone age and backwards. meanwhile there's 3 month wait time to buy a car in certain shining countries.
New Energy Vehicles (NEVs) in China
- Thread starter supercat
- Start date
broadsword
Brigadier
Is China self-sufficient in IGBT for autos?
not at the moment, but probably in another year. Although, I don't really expect to make all of their own IGBTs or SICs, since some of the foreign JVs and NIO/XPeng will keep buying foreign ones that are either produced in China or bought directly. And some of the domestic chipmakers will export broad.
power chips are going to be quite dominated by Chinese chipmakers. I'm impressed at how much capacity BYD, CRRC, Silan and Huahong/StarPower all added in such a shower time. I think the current energy crisis in Europe will devastate the minimal chipmaking ability they still have.
Why is that SMIC is having a meeting in Chongqing with the local government, Bosch China and ST China? I think they are going to build a large fab there to manufacture chips for Bosch and STMicro. The cost of manufacturing in Europe is likely to be very high and SMIC can probably get a new fab up and producing power chips by end of 2023. As soon as China reaches that technology level, it's going to be the most efficient manufacturer of that technology.
So, I anticipate that Chinese chipmakers will be producing power chips for the European automakers. Could be as part of JV between Infineon, ST, Bosch and SMIC, Huahong or GTA Semiconductor. Or it could just be directly through CRRC, StarPower and BYD.
I see China dominating power chips and electric motor very soon. Europe will be too distracted by social unrest and economic troubles to do anything about. America will produce enough to supply domestic players, but there is not enough investment in this area.
The other part that got my attention yesterday was this Bosch investment in Cambricon SingGo, which is the auto division of Cambricon. SingGo has already received investment from SAIC, NIO and CATL.
Cambricon is more well known for its AI server chips, but it came out with auto CPUs a while back that is quite competitive. They have a lower end chip SD5223 with 16 TOPS for less expensive cars and a higher end SD5226 with over 400 TOPS (using 7 nm process) for expensive smart driving cars. Both of these would be top of the market when they come out
So, I wonder if someone like Bosch is getting intrigues by Cambricon auto chips and are looking to build their own super computer for autonomous driving.
As a refresher course, NIO is building a new Adam supercomputer with 4 Nvidia Orin chips (254 TOPS each) that will give over 1000 TOPS of processing power, which is enough for L4 Driving. As a comparison, Tesla cars currently have 2 72 TOPS chips on model Y.
As a whole, if Europe doesn't have chip design house capable of designing modern AI chips, they could either go for American or Chinese chip design houses. Given Qualcomm and Nvidia's history in this space, you'd think they would go build their super computer using American chips. It would be a huge jolt for Chinese auto AI chip industry if the European automakers/suppliers pick Chinese firms.
Here are the domestic players:
First Cambricon - already discussed the chips
FAW will be using them
Black Sesame - has A1000 Pro with 106 TOPS (with 16 nm TSMC process) and A1000L with 16 TOPS (16 nm TSMC process)
- really gets me nervous that they are touting using Blackberry QNX as its platform.
- it has gotten investment from Bosch group as early as 2018 and got additional investment from Bosch's Boyuan Capital fund this year
JAC will be using them on some of its models
Horizon Robotics - this is the big one. Journey 3 has 5 TOPS (using TSMC 16 nm technology).
- Journey 5 has 96 TOPS, 5P has 128 TOPS using TSMC 16 nm technology
- Journey 6 will apparently be released in 2023 with over 400 TOPS using TSMC 7 nm technology
- Partners include BYD, Audi, Bosch, SAIC, GAC motor, Hongqi, Chery, Li Auto, ChangAn
When Journey 5 was first announced, Horizon said
SAIC said it will use Journey 5 on some car models in 2023
NIO was said to be evaluating journey 5 for its sub brand models
Li Auto L1 have been using Journey 3 since 2021 and L8 will be using Journey 5
Neta will be using them
FAW/Hongqi will be using them
So Horizon really has majority of the market right now. It drives me crazy to read articles that says China has no alternatives to Nvidia Orin, when there clearly are such alternatives. Domestic automakers are using them. I'd be surprised if foreign JVs don't start using them more.
It actually also drives me crazy to see Geely/Zeekr jump on to the new Nvidia Thor chip in 2025, when Horizon and other players might have something comparable by that time.
As of now, it seems like the premium brand of BYD and NIO still considers Nvidia Orin to be more capable than Journey 5, so the more premium cars are using that. The less premium cars will be using Journey 5. Even so, that seems like a barrier that will be crossed in the next couple of years.
There is also BYD's own chip making project.
It's not clear to me if BYD is actually designing its own chips or will be using working with someone else to design its chips. At the end of the day, BYD is the only one that really matters here. It seems like they are taking 3 paths of Nvidia, Horizon and self. Eventually, I expect them to be a major player here. XPeng picking Orin isn't going to matter if they keep losing money at this pace.
Cambricon is more well known for its AI server chips, but it came out with auto CPUs a while back that is quite competitive. They have a lower end chip SD5223 with 16 TOPS for less expensive cars and a higher end SD5226 with over 400 TOPS (using 7 nm process) for expensive smart driving cars. Both of these would be top of the market when they come out
So, I wonder if someone like Bosch is getting intrigues by Cambricon auto chips and are looking to build their own super computer for autonomous driving.
As a refresher course, NIO is building a new Adam supercomputer with 4 Nvidia Orin chips (254 TOPS each) that will give over 1000 TOPS of processing power, which is enough for L4 Driving. As a comparison, Tesla cars currently have 2 72 TOPS chips on model Y.
As a whole, if Europe doesn't have chip design house capable of designing modern AI chips, they could either go for American or Chinese chip design houses. Given Qualcomm and Nvidia's history in this space, you'd think they would go build their super computer using American chips. It would be a huge jolt for Chinese auto AI chip industry if the European automakers/suppliers pick Chinese firms.
Here are the domestic players:
First Cambricon - already discussed the chips
FAW will be using them
Black Sesame - has A1000 Pro with 106 TOPS (with 16 nm TSMC process) and A1000L with 16 TOPS (16 nm TSMC process)
- really gets me nervous that they are touting using Blackberry QNX as its platform.
- it has gotten investment from Bosch group as early as 2018 and got additional investment from Bosch's Boyuan Capital fund this year
JAC will be using them on some of its models
Horizon Robotics - this is the big one. Journey 3 has 5 TOPS (using TSMC 16 nm technology).
- Journey 5 has 96 TOPS, 5P has 128 TOPS using TSMC 16 nm technology
- Journey 6 will apparently be released in 2023 with over 400 TOPS using TSMC 7 nm technology
- Partners include BYD, Audi, Bosch, SAIC, GAC motor, Hongqi, Chery, Li Auto, ChangAn
When Journey 5 was first announced, Horizon said
BYD announced it will use them on some car models in 2023.
SAIC said it will use Journey 5 on some car models in 2023
NIO was said to be evaluating journey 5 for its sub brand models
Li Auto L1 have been using Journey 3 since 2021 and L8 will be using Journey 5
Neta will be using them
FAW/Hongqi will be using them
So Horizon really has majority of the market right now. It drives me crazy to read articles that says China has no alternatives to Nvidia Orin, when there clearly are such alternatives. Domestic automakers are using them. I'd be surprised if foreign JVs don't start using them more.
It actually also drives me crazy to see Geely/Zeekr jump on to the new Nvidia Thor chip in 2025, when Horizon and other players might have something comparable by that time.
As of now, it seems like the premium brand of BYD and NIO still considers Nvidia Orin to be more capable than Journey 5, so the more premium cars are using that. The less premium cars will be using Journey 5. Even so, that seems like a barrier that will be crossed in the next couple of years.
There is also BYD's own chip making project.
It's not clear to me if BYD is actually designing its own chips or will be using working with someone else to design its chips. At the end of the day, BYD is the only one that really matters here. It seems like they are taking 3 paths of Nvidia, Horizon and self. Eventually, I expect them to be a major player here. XPeng picking Orin isn't going to matter if they keep losing money at this pace.
More new factory from BYD
I have honestly never heard of this place before. Then again, I'm not from Anhui. BYD is building a large plant at Fuyang! It will invested 10 billion RMB in a new factory that will produce NEV parts/components for 1 million cars. It will build a precision work centers, precision injection molding parts for motors, wheel speed lines, wheel hub bearings, seat cover and other parts. It will employ over 10000 people. Again, BYD will easily be the largest private employer in a 4th or maybe even 5th tier city.
You may remember in end of June, BYD started producing cars at its Hefei plant. That's not its only Anhui province endeavor in the past few months. More recently, it signed a JV with JAC Motors, Ankai Auto and Zhezhu grouop for a new battery plant Anhui.
I don't think this is related to that JV.
I do think this will make BYD the largest and most influential private company in Anhui, which is actually quite the automobile powerhouse in China.
I have honestly never heard of this place before. Then again, I'm not from Anhui. BYD is building a large plant at Fuyang! It will invested 10 billion RMB in a new factory that will produce NEV parts/components for 1 million cars. It will build a precision work centers, precision injection molding parts for motors, wheel speed lines, wheel hub bearings, seat cover and other parts. It will employ over 10000 people. Again, BYD will easily be the largest private employer in a 4th or maybe even 5th tier city.
You may remember in end of June, BYD started producing cars at its Hefei plant. That's not its only Anhui province endeavor in the past few months. More recently, it signed a JV with JAC Motors, Ankai Auto and Zhezhu grouop for a new battery plant Anhui.
I don't think this is related to that JV.
I do think this will make BYD the largest and most influential private company in Anhui, which is actually quite the automobile powerhouse in China.