With an annual output of 350 billion, China's automotive chips are accelerating the de-Americanization, and Bill Gates' prediction is about to come true

In fact, what is more worrying than the "involution" in the automotive industry is the repeatedly mentioned chip issue.

In early December, the U.S. Department of Commerce announced new export control regulations, adding 140 Chinese companies to the Entity List and subjecting more semiconductor products such as semiconductor equipment and high-bandwidth memory chips to export controls.

Immediately afterwards, China's four major industry associations (China Internet Association, China Semiconductor Industry Association, China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, and China Communications Enterprise Association) issued a statement calling on domestic companies to carefully choose to purchase American chips.

Although the specific wording of each statement varies, they generally express the same meaning: relevant chip products from the United States are no longer safe or reliable.

On the chip issue, the US intentions are clear and the attitudes of relevant Chinese departments are clear. However, from the perspective of industry development, it is undoubtedly a big challenge for Chinese auto companies.

According to statistics from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, the number of automotive chips required for traditional fuel vehicles is 600-700 per vehicle, the number of chips required for electric vehicles has increased to 1,600, and the number of chips required for smart cars has increased significantly to 3,000. Based on the annual production of nearly 30 million domestically produced cars, even if a median is taken, about 40 billion chips are needed each year.

This data means that if Chinese car companies want to be free from the constraints of relevant US policies, they must solve the chip problem themselves. Otherwise, such a huge demand will inevitably have a relatively large impact on the current development of new energy vehicles.

In fact, the chip problem had already erupted a few years ago. Due to over-reliance on imported chips, many car companies lost their initiative at the time and had a very difficult time. A chip that originally cost a few yuan could even be sold for thousands of yuan due to shortages. In order to deliver on time, car companies could only swallow their pride.

The difficulties at that time sounded the alarm for the entire industry. From this perspective, the premature encounter was not entirely a bad thing.

In 2021, during the chip shortage in the automotive industry, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the "Automotive Semiconductor Supply and Demand Matching Manual" to encourage the localization of automotive chips.

Now, three years have passed, and domestic chips have gradually borne fruit. In the fields of power chips, sensor chips, storage chips, etc., they have been able to achieve complete "de-beautification".

According to relevant information, Broadcom Integrated has multiple chip products that have passed the AEC-Q100 automotive certification, and the company's automotive-grade chip products have entered the customer systems of many mainstream car manufacturers.

Fudan Microelectronics is focusing on the field of in-vehicle vision chips. Its product application scenarios are constantly increasing, and it can already provide complete in-vehicle vision chips and solutions for Tier 1 and automobile manufacturers. Its related products have entered the high-end brands of leading enterprises and basically cover the mainstream domestic vehicle manufacturers through Tier 1 suppliers.

In addition, domestic automotive chip manufacturers are also making continuous efforts. For example, BYD, GigaDevice, and National Technology China have all made certain breakthroughs.

In recent months, there has been a lot of good news in the industry.

On July 27, NIO’s “Shenji NX9031” was successfully taped out.

On August 23, Xiaopeng's "Turing chip" was successfully taped out.

On September 20, Great Wall MCU chip Bauhinia M100 was successfully lit up.

On November 9, the domestically produced high-performance automotive MCU chip DF30 customized by Dongfeng Motor and its AUTOSAR-compliant operating system (OS) and microcontroller abstraction layer (MCAL) were officially released.

Just one year later, in 2022, China produced 324.186 billion chips; and this number increased to 351.44 billion chips last year, in 2023.

In the first 10 months of this year, China's semiconductor industry accelerated again, with output reaching 353 billion chips, a year-on-year increase of 24.8%, exceeding the total for the whole year of 2023 and setting a new record. It is planned that by 2025, Chinese auto brands will increase the proportion of domestic automotive chips purchased to 20%~25%.

It is worth noting that, in addition to confidence, we still need to pay attention to the current reality facing China in the chip field. Even though the localization rate of automotive chips has increased from less than 5% in the past to about 10% now, the overall share is still relatively low.

Data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology shows that by 2023, more than 90% of chips in China's automotive industry will need to be imported from abroad, with the dependence on computing and control chips reaching as high as 99%, and the dependence on power and storage chips reaching 92%.

This means that Chinese automakers are still some distance away from truly "de-beautifying" their chips. As Ye Shengji, chief engineer and deputy secretary-general of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, said, the stability and reliability of some domestically produced chips in complex environments need to be further improved, and product verification and testing technology needs to be further strengthened.

Yuan Chengyin, secretary-general of the China Automotive Chip Industry Innovation Strategic Alliance, also said recently: It is still difficult to expect to completely de-beautify complex SoCs with high performance and high computing power in the short term, and industrial development must be transitional and gradual.

It is gratifying that Chinese companies have the ability to mass-produce chips with a process of 14nm and above. Chips at this process level can already meet the needs of many application fields, such as consumer electronics and communication equipment. Some Chinese manufacturers have already achieved the production of 7nm chips, making breakthroughs in the manufacturing of advanced process chips.

Therefore, even if the United States deliberately imposes restrictions on chips, Chinese car companies are not without a way out. It is only a matter of time before they can conquer higher-level processes.

Although the various restrictions imposed by the United States have caused troubles for Chinese automakers, they will also strengthen the cohesion between Chinese automakers and chip companies, and provide further development opportunities for the installation of domestic automotive chips and the expansion of production capacity. As Bill Gates predicted, from the perspective of American interests, there should be no restrictions on chip exports to China, and chips should be exported to China in unlimited quantities to reduce the motivation of Chinese companies to develop chips. Because once chips are not sold to China, it will stimulate China's willingness to manufacture chips by itself, which is really not a good thing for the United States - in the future, the United States will not only gradually lose this market, but also many Americans will lose their high-paying jobs.

Now it seems that this is indeed the case. What will the United States have left if it loses its chips?

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.