Chen Gang, General Manager of BYD Semiconductor: The ecosystem of cars is far gr

2024-06-07

On May 23, at the 26th Integrated Circuit Manufacturing Annual Conference and Supply Chain Innovation and Development Conference (CICD), Chen Gang, General Manager of BYD Semiconductor Co., Ltd., addressed the question of whether the automotive integrated circuit market is oversupplied and shared the current situation of BYD Semiconductor's implementation in vehicles.

He stated that the semiconductor market for the new energy vehicle track is still far from being oversupplied. At this conference, we obtained a lot of information:

- The market for automotive-grade semiconductors is about to reach a scale of 1 trillion.

- The first self-developed power semiconductor chip has been installed in more than 6 million vehicles.

- BYD Han is the first model in the country equipped with silicon carbide, and it has been installed in more than 500,000 vehicles.

- The entire BYD Formula Leopard series adopts BYD's silicon carbide technology.

- In the field of automotive-grade MCU, BYD has accumulated more than 100 million vehicles installed.

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- The three major components have been implemented in vehicles, washing machines may soon be implemented, and entertainment vehicles will also be coming soon.

About 4 or 5 years ago, domestic new energy vehicles were still relatively rare. Now, on the roads of Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Beijing, you can easily see new energy vehicles. On the track of new energy vehicles, China is undoubtedly the country with the highest market capacity and the forefront of innovation.According to the data, from 2020 to 2023, the penetration rate of new energy vehicles in China increased from 5% to 34.5%. By 2023, one-third of the cars were already new energy vehicles. In the just-passed April of 2024, the penetration rate of new energy vehicles has reached 47% to 48%, approaching and even surpassing that of traditional fuel vehicles. Chen Gang predicts that the penetration rate will reach 60% by 2025.

Many people believe that the rapid development of domestic new energy vehicles is due to the government's driving force. However, BYD, as a participating company, states that this is only one of the less important factors. The most important factor is that the innovative genes of Chinese new energy vehicles have deeply rooted in the hearts of all R&D engineers involved in new energy vehicles. BYD's automotive technology iteration, from the IGBT 4.0 in 2018 to the DiLink technology, and then to the recently released Yisi Sifang technology platform, has subverted the traditional mechanical power, making cars safer and more efficient.

Regarding the application of integrated circuits in BYD, BYD has proposed three keywords: efficiency, intelligence, and integration. Chen Gang believes that the first half of the electrification of new energy vehicles has basically come to an end, and the world has fully believed in the wide application of energy storage batteries represented by lithium-ion batteries in new energy vehicles. Now it is the second half, and it is time to embrace the era of intelligence. The promotion of the intelligent era will create a huge increase in the market for automotive-grade semiconductors.

At present, the development of intelligence is not yet fully mature, and the global automotive-grade semiconductor market is between 500 billion and 600 billion. With the development of intelligence, the price of semiconductors per electric vehicle will exceed 10,000 yuan. Currently, there are about 90 million passenger cars and special vehicles in the global market. Therefore, the market for automotive-grade semiconductors is about to enter the trillion scale.

Intelligence requires a large number of semiconductor applications, including a large number of sensors, computing chips, power chips, and basic chips. Therefore, the development of new energy vehicles must master the core "core" technology to achieve independent control. BYD welcomes more domestic semiconductor companies to participate in the development of automotive-grade semiconductors. Chen Gang said that based on semiconductors, the spiral development of electrification and intelligence complement each other.

BYD's overall solution for new energy vehicles, mastering independent chip technology, 8 core application systems, covering 80% of automotive semiconductors. Chen Gang also mentioned that taking the car as an ecosystem, the imagination space is still very large. Now the three major components have been on the car, and the washing machine is estimated to be on the car after a while; on the premise of ensuring safety, the entertainment car that will come out immediately. The ecosystem of cars is far greater than that of mobile phones.

Power semiconductors are the key technology for electrification. BYD quantifies 5 indicators: higher current density, higher integration, higher reliability, lower loss, and lower cost. He also mentioned that there are four technical difficulties in independently developing automotive-grade power devices:

First, the chip technology process is particularly complex. In chip design, it is necessary to comprehensively consider multiple parameters that may be contradictory or related, while also considering the feasibility of the process. In wafer manufacturing, special processes such as high-energy injection, trench etching, life control thin-film processing, etc., far exceed the requirements of conventional microelectronics processes, requiring thinning to below 100um to complete processes such as injection, etching, annealing, metallization, etc.

Second, the packaging technology is far higher than the industrial requirements. There are requirements for shock resistance, small volume, failure rate target requirements of 0 PPM, power cycling, and resistance to cold and heat shock capabilities.Thirdly, the requirements for testing and certification are high. At a minimum, they must meet device-level certification standards such as AECQ101 and AGG324; pass complex automotive OTS verification, extreme condition verification, winter/summer testing, road testing, etc.

Fourthly, the requirements for quality control are high. There are quality management systems such as IATF16949, VDA, and strict control of design and production quality, as well as necessary aging screening.

This can also be understood that the proportion of Chinese automotive-grade semiconductors in the global market is less than 5%, which is not commensurate with the status of China's integrated circuits. Chen Gang shared that none of the top ten automotive-grade semiconductors in the world are in China. The reason for such a mismatch is that other industries are short, flat, fast, quick to return money, and have good profits, but automotive-grade semiconductors require long-term verification of 2-4 years. However, Chen Gang also mentioned that once the automotive industry chain is entered, the high added value obtained in the next 10 years and 20 years is also stable and considerable.

BYD has been deeply involved in power devices for 20 years, fully independently developing new energy vehicle main motor drive power devices. It has now launched IGBT 6.0, whose main performance has reached the international leading level. Compared with the mainstream market chips, the current density is increased by 25%, and the comprehensive loss is reduced by 20%. In addition, the first self-developed power semiconductor chip has been installed in more than 6 million vehicles.

Regarding silicon carbide (SiC) technology, BYD believes that the most powerful source of power for the next generation of new energy vehicles comes from silicon carbide. The excellent performance of SiC compared to silicon materials makes SiC MOS bring significant efficiency improvements in the drive of new energy vehicle motors. Currently, BYD SiC 3.0 has high-density planar gate technology and high-reliability key process technology, and its main performance has reached the international advanced level. BYD · Han is the first model in the country to carry silicon carbide, and it has been installed in more than 500,000 vehicles. BYD's Formula Leopard series uses BYD silicon carbide technology.

Intelligentization creates a huge increase in the market for automotive-grade semiconductors. The technical trend of intelligent sensors is developing towards high-definition, high-speed, and intelligence; intelligent control ICs are also gradually becoming the core technology of automotive intelligence. In the field of automotive-grade MCU, BYD has already accumulated more than 100 million vehicles installed.

Chen Gang shared that this year, BYD Semiconductor has undertaken about 70-80 innovative projects for BYD new energy vehicles, and BYD hopes to deeply integrate with domestic schools and enterprises. BYD always adheres to the R&D concept of "mass production of one generation, reserve of one generation, and research and development of one generation."

From chip design, material equipment, wafer manufacturing, packaging testing, research institutes, universities, to the entire industry chain of vehicle parts, "core" upstream and downstream of the industrial chain collaborate and develop together. Let new energy vehicles make joint efforts in accelerating R&D progress, shortening verification cycles, optimizing product performance, product reliability, and supply chain security.

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