IOV (car Internet) Road is laid in silicon: changing car core competence (page 1/2)

　Technologists have a lot of words such as "destructive" and "revolutionary", but the evolution of recent car design and manufacturing is truly destructive and revolutionary.The change has been a drastic change that was not seen in the history of automobile design over the past 100 years, and since the history of the car that has been running on the same dusty road with steam vehicles, gasoline and electric vehicles.This is the biggest progress.And this time, the electronics are being broken down into a car -in order to reborn as a supercomputer with tires -once different.

　One engineer working at BMW said, "The team has been working on the team for decades to design out outstanding handling and performance cars, but what prospects now want to know first is the car.Whether it corresponds to the mobile phone I use, "he lamented.Until now, mechanical design was the standard for car purchase, but it is now being replaced by electronics and software.It's no wonder that conventional car designers feel frustrated.

　Mercedes-Benz, Nissan Motor, Volvo, and other car manufacturers emphasize that their cars are equipped with wireless chargers, digital dashboards, collision avoidance systems, and 24 channel stereos.It's not a coincidence.None of the manufacturers touch horsepower, engine speed, ride comfort, handling, or "luxurious Corinic leather".Even the commercials of Ford Trucks are not the loading capacity and the gravitation of the truck, but the number of 12V outlets and built -in generators are uri.The total weight (GVWR) was replaced by the computer performance.

　Electric motors, autonomous driving technology, infotainment electronics, subscription service, post-sales wireless updates, and V2X (VEHICLE-TO-EVERYTHING) communications are semiconductor chips and software demand for indexed.It is increasing.Industry analysts are now regarded as one category of car leopt tronics, and are treated as a supplementary industry for the purpose of computing and aerospace.

　Where are you all heading?Since the connection to the Internet and the cloud data center is now essential, automakers' core competence is shifting from mechanical design to software and silicon.What is needed for the internet of the car (IOV) is data, not gasoline.SoC (System-on-chip) is responsible for collection, processing, transmission, and preservation of the data.

　The world's automakers produce about 100 million units a year, including cars and trucks.According to the research company IHS Markit (as of October 2020), more than half of the produced cars are equipped with 15 to 24 complex SoC (System-on-chip) devices by 2026, and average per unit.It is predicted to have 23 SOCs.In other words, around 2026, the automotive market alone requires nearly 1.5 billion ($ 60 million x 23) SOCs a year.And this is just five years from now.By the beginning of 2030, 10 years from now, the demand for complicated SOCs for automobiles would increase to 2 billion.

　IOV is the biggest opportunity for the semiconductor industry since smartphones.

　Some of these silicon are directed to the hottest automatic driving technology in the advanced operation support system (ADAS).Nevertheless, most of them are used for familiar functions, such as infotainments and telematics, and are used for radio, GPS navigation, digital meters, mobile phone connections, engine management, etc.。All listed here are essential functions in the car retail market, which depends on consumer demand.It is no longer an advertisement that pushes the function to the front.

　However, these technologies are just the car itself -in terms of technical terms, "endpoints".What is the infrastructure behind it?In that you need a number of vast rooms full of servers, automakers are no different from Amazon, Google, Facebook, and Microsoft.

　Assuming that one server is assigned to 200 cars, you need 300,000 servers a year.Furthermore, local governments around the world are constantly improving infrastructure."Smart City" technology is used in countless traffic lights, high-speed signs, cameras, street lamps, roadside sensors, V2i (VEHICLE-TO-InFRASTRUCTURE) networks, and are supported by countless wired / wireless access points.Communications that have a significant effect on delays will be communicated between vehicles and cars and roadside base stations.All of this requires more silicon.

　And next is the software.The number of code lines of the in -vehicle software will reach about 30 million lines even if you estimate (for reference, the old version of Microsoft Windows was about 50 million).Some of the latest model cars, which are all, have estimated over 100 million lines.In any case, it is a complex, networked, reliable multocessor system.

　Hardware reliability is extremely important.This is because automakers are legally responsible for any dangerous failure.Chip designers are compatible with the fail -safe and functional redundancy, and two or more processors that are running side by side in the SoC are always checking each other.This further increases silicon and makes the SoC design more complicated.

　There are many cases of commercially available chips, but if a car manufacturer designs its own custom chips, it is possible to further enhance the hardware performance and differentiate software.For example, image processing neural network requires a large, complex, very specialized machine learning function.The latest Tesla Dojo SoC, which learns a huge amount of videos sent from Tesla cars in a neural network to improve automatic driving user experience, is an example.

　The car decision -making system works mostly when you adopt either a complete custom chip or a quasi -custom chip incorporated with an IP (Intellectual Property) block.This means that many 2 billion SOCs that appear in the early 2030s are completely customized to satisfy the demands of the new automobile ecosystem.