From this year's Mu Show, see the technology and market changes of automotive electronics

Renesas displayed mainly automotive-related products at this year's MUFEC. We also talked with several Renesas automotive business leaders about the current development of the automotive market. The main opportunity points for automotive electronics are in these places...

In the current market environment of the electronics industry, automotive electronics is regarded as one of the few hot spots by many market players in the industry. Looking at Renesas Electronics' Q1 quarterly report this year, this company reported quarterly revenue of 359.7 billion yen, a slight increase compared to the same period last year.

Contributions to growth basically come from the automotive business - automotive direction of the quarterly revenue of about 168.3 billion yen, an increase of 9.3% year-on-year, offsetting the non-automotive business of the small decline and generate a surplus.

At this year's Munich Shanghai Electronics Show (hereinafter referred to as "MU Show"), Renesas displayed mainly products related to the automotive business; in addition, at the recent International Embedded Exhibition, we also talked with Renesas about the current development of the automotive market. In this article, we will talk about Renesas' automotive business in the context of Renesas' Analyst Day in May this year, as well as our interviews with Renesas at Embedded in June and at the recent MU show.

The Next 10 Years of Automotive Electronics

In a previous interview with Lai Changqing (Vice President of Global Sales and Marketing and President of Renesas Electronics China), we talked about the fact that Renesas MCUs have the largest market share in the automotive field, and that Renesas expects to achieve a 20% growth in the automotive business by 2023. Of course, Renesas' automotive business is not limited to MCUs anymore.

According to TechInsights, during the 10-year period from 2019-2029, although the overall automotive production will grow by 1.1 times, the value of semiconductor devices per vehicle will grow by 2.4 times; Renesas believes that the overall TAM market can grow by 2.8 times.

Mingyu Zhao (Vice President of Renesas Electronics' Automotive Electronics Strategic Sales Centre) commented that this prediction is "not very aggressive", "We are considering the shift from traditional fuel vehicles to pure electric vehicles, and the incremental amount of internal semiconductor devices may be x6, x8, or even x10; together with SiC applications and high-voltage full-vehicle applications, the amount of semiconductor devices used is entirely capable of reaching x6, x8, or even x10. semiconductor device usage is fully capable of 10 times or more."

So we see a CAGR growth rate of 30% for Renesas' overall automotive business revenue from 2020-2022. Slicing the automotive business products into control systems, cockpit systems and others, and ADAS/EV/gateways, there are CAGR growth rates of 26%, 31% and 49%, respectively. Given Renesas' position in the automotive market, this set of numbers is more or less indicative of the combined incremental automotive market.

Based on the growth of the business, Renesas is obviously going to shift its attention to EE architecture, ADAS/AD, and EV, so Renesas' Analyst Day, the two speeches on the automotive business given by Mingyu Zhao to the media, as well as our interviews are more or less centred on these parts of the business. In the following pages, we also focus on these three directions.

On the other hand, Zhao Mingyu mentioned that "the concept of using cars has changed a lot," and that "a lot of domestic cars even include karaoke functions, which was unbelievable 10 years ago." "Cars are now more than just point-to-point transport; many people treat them as an extension of their home and a continuation of their work environment." So there is a diverse need for networking, high-definition digital connectivity, and high-definition image applications.

"These require us to bring products that were originally in the industrial and consumer sectors to the car. This also gives rise to the idea of IP interoperability and technology crossover. Renesas has products and strategies for such needs." This point seems to correspond to Renesas' "cross-sell" direction, so it was talked about under the name of "cross-domain convergence".

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ADAS/AD: Higher Arithmetic Chips in the Planning Process

Autonomous driving development to the present, a number of non-traditional automotive market players into the market, typical of NVIDIA, and a number of large computing power automotive AI chip companies. In the past two years, self-driving chips have been mentioned more than one topic is the arithmetic - which seems to make Renesas, a traditional giant of automotive chips, look a little awkward.

In fact Renesas R-Car products, the latest R-Car V4H this SoC internal deep learning accelerator, has been able to provide INT8 34TOPS level of arithmetic. Previously, some smart driving chip makers defined the AI power required for L3 at 30-100TOPS, Renesas' chip is clearly within the range; and "with the cooperation of our partners on CNN accelerators, we are able to provide our customers with hardware combinations with more than 60-100TOPS of power".

▲ This demonstration is to estimate the distance between the vehicle and the obstacle and predict the vehicle motion trajectory by generating optical flow vectors, the so-called SFM (Structure-from-Motion) application; the main chip used is the R-Car V4H, which has the IP for accelerating the optical flow method; this ADAS/AD solution is based on the R-Car V4H development board and the R-Car xOS SDK developed by Renesas and LACROIX. development board and R-Car xOS SDK...

▲ This ADAS/AD development platform is also paired with the Hailo-8 AI accelerator, which works with the R-Car V4H to reach L3+ level autonomous driving performance;

Maybe in the eyes of many people, this figure compared to similar NVIDIA DRIVE Orin/Thor such a big chip in terms of arithmetic is still a distance - but the actual existing automotive products in the 60-100TOPS arithmetic range is really already high arithmetic. However, Mingyu Zhao mentioned in his speech that Renesas' "next-generation SoCs offer higher computing power, from simple driving and parking, to L3/L3+, and even L4 and above for different ADAS applications".

This time Renesas Electronics Automotive Electronics Marketing Director Wang Lu said in an interview, "Higher computing power products we are indeed in the planning." This all indicates that Renesas is interested in investing in the AI direction, and may compete head-to-head with these up-and-coming market players. However, Renesas actually has its own understanding of the issue of high computing power.

In fact, at last year's South China Electronics Show in Munich, Mingyu Zhao mentioned that Renesas' decision-making in the direction of computing power should still be "based on customer needs and feedback"; in particular, it should consider "cost and ROI", and "cost is a key issue for many car makers to consider", and "cost is a key issue for many car makers to consider". Cost is a key issue for many car manufacturers to consider", "All applications in the automotive industry are not simply the higher-end the better - the application needs to consider whether it can be assembled into a million mass-produced cars; only if the cost is recognised will it be a good application. " .

In addition, Wang Lu also mentioned: "From the point of view of high computing power, Renesas does not occupy the high ground now. But we, as one of several major automotive semiconductor suppliers, have always been one of the more stable ones. We are in the field of body control, gateway, in terms of market share, know-how, etc. are very strong; driving cabin, before also has been very good performance; may be just in the high computing power, iteration compared to competitors a little slower."

"How to use our ecosystem to build better products, rather than just chasing high computing power, this is what we have to consider." Wang Lu said, "We have the ability to integrate, just the industry chain construction, not many competitors have."

▲Radar system solution for ADAS central computing architecture, and supports satellite radar architecture: i.e. multiple satellite radars connected to one R-Car V4H SoC

Indeed, outside of SoC chip AI arithmetic, Renesas still has other focuses in the ADAS direction, such as radar in the sensing direction. Last October Renesas announced the acquisition of Steradian, focusing on radar technology. At that time Renesas also expressed in the access to radar transceiver core competence, with a complete radar solution.

This is actually still covering the entire signal chain, as well as Renesas classic Winning Combo strategy in effect, after all, in addition to the radar system within the transceiver, in addition to PMIC, pre-regulator, timing devices, and ADAS SoC these links, Renesas have the corresponding products and programmes.

Mingyu Zhao said, "We have now changed our solution for smart driving from a single vision solution to vision + sensing. We are now able to offer more complete ADAS solutions to our customers."

He highlighted that Renesas' radar products are "at least one generation ahead" of the vast majority of solutions on the market, in terms of manufacturing process, power consumption, resolution, accuracy and other aspects. At the same time, "the satellite radar concept is being accepted by vehicle manufacturers, with more efficient processing and lower overall costs." "Certain European OEMs have started to do the satellite radar model, and we are bringing this model to the development of next-generation radar systems for domestic OEMs."

In Renesas' view, the ADAS/AD market as a whole could reach a CAGR growth rate of 21% in the long term future; and Renesas' own revenue growth in this segment could reach a CAGR of 36% in the same period.

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EV Market Growth Potential, SIC on the Way

Another hotspot outside of ADAS/AD is EV, and at Embedded, Mingyu Zhao mentioned Renesas' SiC MOSFET production line, discussing how Renesas currently has only one 6-inch wafer production line. "Although we entered this field later than our friends, we were thus able to avoid the problems that our friends had previously faced in the market and technology."

"We are very confident that by 2025, when the new Silicon Carbide 8-inch line is in mass production, the product performance will be sufficient to compete with most products on the market." "In fact, it's not too late for us to prepare our technology, now it's just a matter of how to effectively increase production capacity. From what we have learnt about the developmental thinking of the demand for SiC products from OEMs, the 2025 timeframe is fine with me."

The actual recent Renesas just announced and Wolfspeed signed a 10-year SiC wafer (bare and epitaxial wafer) supply agreement, Renesas spent $ 2 billion in deposits to ensure the long-term supply of 6-inch and 8-inch SiC wafers. This also shows the determination of Renesas in the direction of SiC investment.

EV motor control solution, Renesas advertises that this solution "achieves the world's top level of drive efficiency in the field of dual-motor control"; which includes IGBTs and corresponding pre-drivers; combined with PMICs, MCUs, position sensors, and other components, it is still possible to see the advantages of Renesas in the complete coverage of the signal chain and the overall cost of the BOM;

▲ Inductive position sensors for high-speed motor steering; programme accuracy "can be optimised to 0.2%", supporting up to 600,000rpm motor scenarios; can be used in different positions at the end of the shaft, on the side of the shaft, through the shaft;

As for Renesas' strategy in IGBT, we have also introduced it before. On the one hand, Renesas' IGBT is shifting from the AE4 process to AE5, to achieve power loss, size reduction - AE5 process IGBT mass production is expected to be in the first half of next year, with the Naka factory's 8-inch and 12-inch wafer production line; the first half of 2024 Kofu factory's 12-inch wafer production line will follow. "Samples of the AE5 should be available to domestic Chinese customers this year."

It is worth mentioning that Renesas believes that previously the company only do IGBT wafers, compared to those who do packaging competitors is a disadvantage; but now "many domestic OEMs, tier 1 have established their own packaging system, do product customisation, but also to strengthen the control of the supply chain; Renesas original disadvantage has become an advantage." Zhao Mingyu said.

Devices and chips outside the solution, combined product part, Renesas in the field of EV is also "constantly strengthen the investment" - after all, from the device supplier to the solution provider, is the main theme of the development of Renesas over the years. For example, in the past two years for the Asia-Pacific market, Renesas launched the inverter, charging, DC/DC, BMS and other applications in the direction of the solution, which also contains hardware, system software algorithms.

▲ Automotive BMS solution demonstration, which should be a relatively complete platform SBC + AFE + MCU, which includes a high-precision BMIC, to do the delivery of the turnkey way!

It is worth mentioning the trend of "X-in-One" multi-EV system mentioned by Mingyu Zhao in his previous speech, which "merges more and more different applications with EV-related drives together". "There are some customers in China doing all-in-one systems, but most of them are simply combining ECUs together. For example, the BMS system is still a combination of separate MCU + PMIC plus analogue front-end, and the same goes for Inverter."

Renesas is mainly based on the more advanced manufacturing process of MCU, plus multi-core design, based on the arithmetic power improvement and system level optimisation, to do the real all-in-one improvement, to reach the so-called next-generation E-Axle. this is also a pretty interesting example.

"There are domestic OEMs and Tier 1s that are capable of doing this kind of programme. But not many companies are able to effectively match the products together, the whole system to achieve better performance than independent components, while achieving cost reductions.Know-how still needs time to accumulate." Zhao Mingyu said in the interview, "We also went through a period of bonding with our Japanese partners." In June this year Nedco and Renesas Electronics have jointly announced that they will co-operate on the development of semiconductor solutions for the new generation of E-Axle (X-in-1 system), which integrates drive motors and power electronics for electric vehicles (EVs).

Overall, Renesas believes that the EV market can reach a CAGR growth of 24% in the long term future, and that Renesas itself can increase this value to 36% in this area. While technological improvements at the device level are important, Renesas' ability to provide complete solutions is also key to its own faster-than-market growth, concludes Mingyu Zhao.

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Market development driven by EE architecture changes

Much has been made about the changes in automotive EE electrical and electronic architecture over the years. Domain controllers, cross-domain convergence, software-defined cars, changes in supplier relationships at different tiers, and the changing value chain of the automotive industry are basically all centred around this topic.

In this abstraction, Renesas sees the market long term beyond 2022 as one that can deliver itself 43% CAGR revenue growth - it feels like this part is not in the same dimension as the first two (ADAS/AD vs. EV). But what Renesas is expressing here is the idea of replacing the dozens and dozens of chips that used to be needed to reach the same functionality with a higher-performance digital chip or chips.

▲ Domain Control Unit solution, the main body of which is the RH850/U2x MCU - a 400MHz main frequency 6-core CPU with a maximum of 26MB of RAM; this solution uses the Hypervisor/AutoSAR software stack, developed in cooperation with ETAS, and is a "automotive ECU virtualisation platform";

A representative product in this regard is the first generation of RH850 products for the functional domain. Subsequently, "with the development of the functional domain, car manufacturers iterated new requirements for the location domain." Zhao Mingyu said, "At this time, more judgement and calculation functions will be concentrated in the central gateway, the central gateway has a greater demand for computing power, MCU computing power is not enough to meet such demand, we iterated the high computing power of the R-Car products."

At the Renesas booth at the MU show, the smart gateway and domain control was also a separate area. 12nm process R-Car S4 was naturally the focus of the display - the CPU part of this SoC, using eight Cortex-A55, one Cortex-R52 (dual-core lock-step), as well as two RH850 (dual-core lockstep).

The booth staff mainly emphasised to us the richness of the S4's connectivity extensions, including PCIe 4.0, storage UFS support in addition to the usual support for CAN, CAN-FD, etc., and the integration of a 3-port Ethernet TSN switch to achieve 3x 2.5Gbps bandwidth - the integrated The integration of the switch also enables the forwarding of different interfaces to achieve lower latency and so on. These are still good examples of how E/E architectural changes can have a real impact on automotive hardware.

▲ On-site demonstration of this R-Car S4-based gateway solution demo, on-site staff said that part of the data is passed to S4 via PCIe; S4 then passes the data to the IVI domain via Ethernet (it seems that this part is based on the R-Car M3); and the IVI domain is finally displayed via HDMI... The whole thing is showing the PCIe, Ethernet, and CAN-FD connectivity of the S4 as a gateway; but this picture only shows part of the topology;

▲ Another of the more interesting demos in the gateway solution demonstration was this IDS/IPS security function demo, also based on S4. The meter part of this demo uses an R-Car H3, "The meter is connected to the gateway via a network cable, and then to my computer via a network cable." The booth staff said, "The simplicity of the wiring harness brings a problem, the network part is easy to cause hacking. Hackers attack the instrument, (payload) forwarded through the gateway. If I open the firewall (IDS/IPS) at this time, I can intercept the attack signal and it won't get through."

This IDS/IPS demonstrated by Renesas is based on an open source framework called Snort, "the source code for this demo is all available for download." "Now for this gateway chip, there are a lot of companies around the world making solutions (based on Whitebox SDK), and there are already very many solutions, including Mcal, driver part, framework part, and a lot of applications on it."

In addition, in the process of EE architecture change, "Zonal domain will have higher requirements for node execution efficiency, and we have also strengthened the 16/8-bit machine performance of RL78." Together with the aforementioned RH850 products, as well as the higher-performance-positioned Arm core products, "our product portfolio covers the new EE architecture oriented to different levels of product requirements." Zhao Mingyu said.

It is worth mentioning that the EE architecture change brings the development system "left shift", as well as Renesas developers to build a simulator environment, so that the system software development and hardware development to reach synchronisation, system-level verification is also relatively synchronous - and Renesas to provide a cloud environment The cloud environment provided by Renesas is said to be able to reach Tier 1 system level; we have mentioned this point in last year's article. This is something that should be common in the automotive industry now with Tier 2 suppliers like Renesas.

One final note on EE architectural changes and automotive cross-domain convergence: Wang Lu said that EE architectural changes have not only manifested themselves in the emergence of controllers; furthermore, "when we talk about cross-domain convergence, it could be the driver's compartment domain, the control domain, the gateway domain, the ADAS domain... all converging into a single chip. All fused into one chip." Wang Lu talked about, "But now after all these years of development in China, everyone may have calmed down, not to go after high computing power and complete fusion, and consider the integrated cost control and local fusion. After all, the development of fusion is much more difficult."

Regarding the trend of automotive electronics, Renesas focuses on ADAS/AD, EV, and EE architecture, and that's about it. However, in fact, Renesas summarises its opportunities and strategies in the automotive market, and also mentions the development idea of bringing products and technologies from other fields into the automotive field - also called "cross-domain integration" by Renesas. That is, with the help of industrial, IoT, infrastructure and other market technologies, enabling the enrichment of automotive products.

This is more representative of the digital key, wireless BMS, tyre pressure monitoring, etc., technology from Renesas non-automotive business. This should belong to the conventional thinking of business development.

Ultimately, based on the development of the automotive electronics market itself, as well as Renesas' technological strengths and market strategy, the 2.8 times SAM incremental growth expected by 2029 may still be relatively conservative. The financial reports and Design-In figures of these two years should give a more intuitive prediction, as many new products will be launched in these two years.