▲Lee Su-in, head of the Telechips group, is giving a presentation.

Expanding electric vehicles and diversifying ADAS technologies are driving supply chain changes.
Simultaneous partnerships with chipset, cloud, and software vendors.

Industry insiders are analyzing that as the transition to electric vehicles drives platform changes, automotive semiconductor companies that entered the market late are also finding opportunities.

Lee Su-in, Group Leader of Telechips' Product Strategy Planning Group, presented on the topic of "Changes in the Automotive ADAS and Autonomous Driving Semiconductor Market" at Automotive Innovation Day 2023 (AID 2023).

The group leader said that amidst the rapid changes taking place as the transition to electric vehicles leads to autonomous driving, automotive semiconductor companies that entered the market as latecomers are also finding new opportunities through integration and restructuring.

The expansion of electric vehicles and the diversification of ADAS technology are leading to completely different changes in the supply chain than before, and as SDV (Software Defined Vehicle) becomes a trend, OEMs are transforming from mere automobile manufacturers into service companies.

In this trend, OEMs are directly handling a lot of the software that forms the basis of SDV, and are expanding their cooperation with SoC vendors beyond strategic cooperation with Tier 1, and chipset vendors such as Telechips. Simultaneous partnerships with cloud solutions, software vendors, and others are being pursued.

The group leader emphasized, “Many people think that infotainment and autonomous driving will be integrated as we move forward with HPC, but from a semiconductor perspective, that is absolutely not the case.”

There are many different requirements from a safety and security perspective, and the opinion is that OEMs are unlikely to step forward to handle the many problems that can arise when chips are integrated.

After receiving feedback from OEMs, the company said that autonomous driving and infotainment chips installed in car computers will continue to be used even after 2030.

Related companies are targeting Level 3 autonomous driving, and ADAS functions are leading the trend by being embedded in in-cabin vehicles. It is also worth noting that as development continues, things that were previously handled in software are evolving into hardware requirements.

Tesla, Nvidia, Intel, and others are pursuing a stand-alone platform SoC type, and are preparing an AI accelerator type that enhances the performance of the MPU to further expand this, and Qualcomm is also working on both a platform SoC and an AI accelerator at the same time.

In the case of front cameras related to out-of-cabin ADAS, Intel holds over 90% of the global market share, followed by Renesas and Ambarella, and they are targeting markets that Mobileye does not have.

In the in-cabin ADAS field, Texas Instruments is showing strength, and Ambarella is also showing progress.

Looking at the semiconductor trends in AD, the NPU specifications of OEMs that have released or are about to release Level 3 autonomous driving are at least 500 TOPS, and for Level 4, more than 1,000 TOPS are required.It is expected to happen.

The companies leading the trend are Qualcomm and Nvidia, which are showcasing chips with over 2,000 TOPS.

Mobileye is currently promoting its autonomous driving platform SoC, launching high-end chips with performance close to 200 TOPS.

Telechips is also developing an autonomous driving accelerator chip with 250 TOPS of NPU performance, with a launch planned for early 2024.

Group Leader Lee Su-in said, “There are still issues that need to be strengthened step by step, such as performance verification,” and “There is a need to create convergence and synergy between parts, including both OEM and Tier 1.”