The development trend of global automobile electrification, networking, intelligence and sharing is deepening, of which electrification can be regarded as the first stage, the core technology includes high-performance integrated power composition, high safety and high performance power battery, the second stage is composed of intelligence, networking and sharing, and the core technology is concentrated in automotive chips, semiconductors and operating systems.

From the functional level, automotive chips can be divided into five categories: master control, storage, power, sensing, analog, among which analog chips are composed of resistors, capacitors, transistors, etc. to process analog signals in the form of continuous functions (such as sound, light, temperature, etc.) integrated circuits, which can be subdivided into signal/interface chips and power management chips.

With the improvement of the comprehensive performance of automobile economy, safety, comfort, entertainment and so on, the functional control has changed from mechanization to automatic intelligence, the number of electronic controllers (ECU/ sensor) has been increasing, and the complexity of automotive electrical systems has been increasing. The traditional distributed E/E architecture of the electrical system adopts a point-to-point single communication mode, which greatly improves the cost and wiring difficulty of the vehicle harness, and can not adapt to the development trend of modern automobiles from cost control to work efficiency. In order to achieve more powerful computing power, higher signal transmission efficiency, body weight reduction and cost control, public data (such as engine speed, wheel speed, throttle position and other information) must be shared systematically, so the automotive electrical system E/E architecture is evolving from distributed to cross-domain centralized. That is, based on the completion function of automotive electronic components, the vehicle architecture is divided into several areas, such as power domain, chassis domain, cockpit domain, dynamic driving domain, and body domain. Discrete function in an area The Electronic Control Unit (ECU) uses the Local Interconnect Network (CAN) technology for communication, and the domain controller uses the Ethernet bus technology for communication between areas. The architecture centralizes decentralized ECUs to domain controllers, making Over-The-Air (OTA) wireless remote upgrades easier. At the same time, the computing power is stronger, the transmission speed is faster, and the high-speed communication network can be supported. The signal/interface chip has communication functions in line with general and specific protocols, which can improve system efficiency and reliability, and is widely used in signal transmission between electronic systems, and is the main component of cross-domain centralized E/E architecture. Including a variety of bus chips (CAN/LIN/USB/Ethernet), audio and video chips (audio chips /SerDes, etc.) and signal conversion modules (amplifiers/isolators/multiplexers, etc.).

The power Management chip is the core of Battery Management System (BMS), an important part of the "three power" System of the automobile. Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS), one of the intelligent indicators of the automobile, promotes the demand for such chips. Such as ESP electronic body stability or ABS anti-lock brakes and other functions. By 2026, 100 percent of passenger cars and 80 percent of small commercial vehicles are expected to be equipped with at least Level1 ADAS. Including battery sampling chip, microcontrol processing unit, quasi-digital converter, digital isolator and so on.

According to statistics, analog chips account for 29% of automotive chips, of which 53% are signal/interface chips and 47% are power management chips.

China Semiconductor Industry Association data show that China's analog chip self-sufficiency rate has been increasing in recent years, from 6% in 2017 to 12% in 2021, while the overall level is still very limited, and the localization space is very broad.

From the perspective of company scale, domestic companies are currently small, with annual revenue of about 2.3 billion CNY, which is a certain gap with overseas leader TI (Texas Instruments, annual revenue of 14.1 billion USD).

From the perspective of product types, some high-efficiency and low-power driver chips for vehicles have been produced in small batches, and the comprehensive performance and quality of products have reached the international advanced level. Related products have been successfully imported into Geely, Great Wall, Changan, BYD, Xiaopeng, HYUNDAI, KIA, Chrysler, Volkswagen and other well-known domestic and foreign auto factories to discuss production. There are also a number of vehicle scale power management chips have been developed, and on-board high-frequency and weak signal chips have also made breakthroughs.

Tianfeng Securities expects that by 2030, the total scale of the domestic analog chip market is expected to reach 33.2 billion CNY.