Chiplet is regarded as the era of large computing power "lifesaving straw"

Recently, 12 Japanese automakers, parts manufacturers and five semiconductor companies formed the "Automotive Advanced SoC Research (ASRA)" alliance, aims to study the production of more efficient automotive processor chips through Chiplet (small chip) technology.

Automotive chip manufacturing links, and involves a number of enterprises and suppliers, it is difficult to form a unified Chiplet standards and technology routes like the consumer electronics industry. Therefore, the independent automotive Chiplet research alliance is not common, the establishment of Japan's automotive Chiplet research alliance, in the end for what?

Use Chiplet to establish a "moat".

Japan's automotive Chiplet Research Alliance can be described as a strong lineup. ASRA official website shows that the alliance consists of Toyota, Nissan, Honda, Mazda, Subaru, Denso and Panasonic Automotive Electronics and other 12 head of Japan's automotive enterprises and automotive parts and components companies, and Renesas Electronics, Cadence, Synopsys Technology, MIRISE Technologies, Socionext, and five leading semiconductor companies. The alliance lineup gathered almost all of Japan's head of the car companies and automotive suppliers, but also includes many international head of the semiconductor manufacturers.
Core Mou research director Zhang Binlei told China Electronic News reporter, in the traditional fuel car era, the Japanese auto industry is in a leading position. However, with the gradual development of automation and electrification, the value of semiconductor technology in the automobile has become more and more prominent. With the advantages in semiconductor, the United States chip companies have gradually become the field of automotive intelligence "leader". In order to establish a relatively independent automotive chip system, Japanese car companies and parts manufacturers and international head of semiconductor manufacturers set up the alliance, and will be the focus of technology locked in the Chiplet.
Saidi consultant analyst Deng Chuxiang that, at present, the Japanese ASRA alliance development model may be led by the car companies, in mainstream models in collaboration with semiconductor companies and parts suppliers to jointly carry out the Japanese automotive chip in the test and development, application validation, batch application and other work, and gradually enhance the Japanese domestic automotive chip in the automobile, especially in the field of new energy vehicles, the proportion of the application.

It is not difficult to see, this Japan brings together all kinds of "heroes" to establish the automotive Chiplet Research Alliance, is in order to build up their own "moat" in the era of electric vehicles.
At the same time, with the continuous development of automotive electrification, intelligent, automotive chip technology has become more and more "specialized". Zheng Li, CEO of Changdian Technology, said that today, a car has been equipped with thousands of chips, more than 90% of the innovation of automotive technology is chip innovation. Therefore, many automotive chip manufacturers have begun to recognize the importance of establishing automotive-grade production lines. In the future, for automotive chips, there is a need for production and research bases for dedicated lines and factory management.

Therefore, a separate automotive Chiplet research alliance or interconnection standards and other platforms can provide more comprehensive and more technical support and guidance for the automotive industry and promote the further development of the automotive chip industry. Deng Chuxiang told the China Electronic News reporter that the number of advanced process automotive chip suppliers will gradually decrease due to the exponential growth in the development cost of advanced process chips. In order to ensure the stability of the automotive chip supply chain, the future of the automotive industry for Chiplet demand will also increase. The establishment of an independent automotive Chiplet research alliance will not only help to enhance supply chain stability and promote industry technology advancement, but also facilitate industry synergy.
　　"The establishment of a separate automotive Chiplet research alliance will also help promote the standardized development of automotive Chiplet technology, thereby reducing development and production costs, improving production efficiency, and enhancing compatibility while ensuring product quality." Deng Chuxiang said.

Chiplet is regarded as a "life-saving straw" in the era of big computing power.

With the increasing degree of automobile intelligence, the self-driving chip has begun to move towards the era of large computing power and new architecture. In order to enhance the computing power and data processing capacity of the car chip, the car chip has also begun to use advanced processes. Last year, the industry's first intelligent cockpit 5nm chip - Qualcomm Snapdragon 8295 also began to officially "on board". At the same time, Nvidia, Intel, MediaTek and other high-performance computing players are paying close attention to the research and development of automotive chips below 7nm.
When the chip process iteration to 5nm, 3nm, the cost and difficulty of process technology development has increased dramatically. Many chip makers, unable to share R&D costs through large-scale applications like NVIDIA and Qualcomm and other leaders, have turned their attention to Chiplet technology.

Chiplet's technology path has significant advantages over advanced process chips in terms of R&D investment and production investment, helping to reduce costs and accelerate time-to-market. It is understood that under Chiplet's system-level architecture design, combined with 2.5D/3D stacking and other advanced packaging technologies, the chip manufactured using 10nm process can achieve a comparable level of integration with the 7nm chip. This is due to the Chiplet technology can be originally a complex SoC chip, from the design of different functional units in accordance with the decomposition, and then for each unit to choose the appropriate process technology, and then through the advanced packaging technology will be interconnected with each other, like "Legos" as packaged into a complete chip.
As a result, the automotive industry has begun to pay close attention to Chiplet technology to reduce hardware costs, improve design flexibility and accelerate time-to-market. With the development of the automotive industry and technological advances, Chiplet architecture is expected to be more widely used in the field of automotive chips.