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As cars move toward electrification, intelligence, and networking, the use of electronic components such as sensors, power semiconductors, and motors is increasing. These components, in turn, require more power management chips for current-voltage conversion, which in turn drives the development of the analog power chip market.

According to IC Insights data, the global power management chip market size is expected to reach US$52.6 billion in 2025, with a compound annual growth rate of 8.8% from 2023 to 2025. However, this market is still dominated by foreign manufacturers. Giants represented by several overseas manufacturers occupy more than 80% of the global power management chip market, which means huge replacement opportunities for domestic power management chip manufacturers.

At the same time, benefiting from national policy support, domestic substitution dividends and capital boom, coupled with the impact of chip shortages in previous years, domestic chip manufacturers have entered the power management chip track using consumer electronics with relatively low barriers to entry, and have achieved a fairly diversified product layout in this field.

On the other hand, domestic manufacturers are also gradually making breakthroughs in automotive power management chips that have higher requirements for safety and reliability. The performance of domestic analog chip company Naxinwei in this field is particularly outstanding. Its power management products such as gate drive, power supply, LED drive, motor drive, power path protection, etc. have been successfully mass-produced and introduced to customers in the automotive field, making it one of the few power management manufacturers in China to enter the automotive market.

Local companies are all competing for power chips

Let’s first take a brief look at power management chips. As chips that are responsible for the conversion, distribution, detection and other power management responsibilities of electronic equipment systems, power management chips will directly affect the performance of electronic equipment and are also an indispensable type of chip in modern electronic products.

According to functional classification, power management chips can be divided into AC/DC converters, DC/DC converters, charging management chips, charging protection chips, wireless charging chips, driver chips and other types.

No matter what kind of product, from mobile phones to space stations, you can find power management chips. Almost all electrical and electronic systems use power management chips. In fact, power management chips occupy more than half of the analog chip market. The opportunities contained therein can naturally be imagined.

Thanks to the wide range of application scenarios, the continuous demand generated by downstream is also continuously driving the development of power management chips. Although the semiconductor industry has been in a downward cycle in the past two years, the power management chip market, especially in China, has maintained a steady growth rate.

According to Gartner data, the scale of China's power chip market will be about US$13 billion in 2022, and is expected to reach US$20 billion in 2025, with a compound annual growth rate of about 15.4%. According to the forecast of TMR, an international market research organization, the global power management chip market will reach US$56.5 billion by 2026, with a compound annual growth rate of 10.7% between 2018 and 2026.

In this rapidly developing chip market, domestic manufacturers are developing very rapidly. It is worth noting that the largest terminal market for power management chips is still consumer electronics, and most domestic manufacturers are also concentrated in this market. Outside the consumer electronics field, although other fields such as automotive electronics, wearable devices, smart home appliances, industrial applications, base stations and equipment are also developing rapidly, there are fewer domestic manufacturers, especially the fastest growing automotive power management chips. Before the shortage in 2021, few domestic manufacturers were willing to delve into this market.

The reason is that the threshold for customer introduction is high, and the product and technology gap between domestic and foreign countries is difficult to eliminate in the short term. The five giants have already had a complete product layout, while most domestic companies are still on the road of increasing product category coverage and expanding product markets. They have not yet entered the iterative upgrading stage. Whenever the downstream market puts forward new demands or encounters new problems, companies need to carry out a new round of research and development to address the demands and problems.

As one of the few power management manufacturers that have entered the automotive market, Naxinwei has maintained a high proportion of R&D investment in recent years. It is understood that Naxinwei's R&D investment in 2023 was 521.6144 million yuan, an increase of 29.17% over 2022, accounting for 39.79% of its operating income. The strong R&D backing has paved the way for Naxinwei to enter this market.

Compared with other domestic power management manufacturers, Naxinwei's R&D investment is clearly targeted. Naxinwei said that unlike other manufacturers scattered in the consumer and industrial fields, Naxinwei has invested almost 90% of its resources in the automotive field. This focused approach has given Naxinwei a greater advantage in the competition in high-threshold fields, especially in the automotive gate drive market. Naxinwei's domestic market share has reached about 10%-15%, far ahead of other domestic power manufacturers.

The power management chip market is highly competitive. For domestic analog chip manufacturers, this track has reached the point where they have to get involved. How to break through in the future, get out of the shadow of the giants, and truly achieve domestic substitution has become an issue that every manufacturer needs to carefully consider. Manufacturers like Naxinwei that have stepped out of their previous comfort zone and successfully entered the automotive market have been unique in the past two years and provided a different answer for domestic analog chips.

Automotive power chip, a new route

Some people may be curious, facing the pressure from foreign giants, what breakthroughs has Nanochip made in automotive power management chips?

Let's first understand the current status of automotive power management chips. In cars, power management chips are mainly responsible for the power supply of on-board electronic devices, including startup power, headlight power, dashboard power, etc. It can effectively manage and distribute power to ensure the normal operation of on-board electronic devices. In addition, motor control chips also play a vital role. They can control the speed and direction of the motor to ensure stable driving of the car.

In addition, the gate drive mentioned in the previous article also plays an important role in automobiles. Since the gate drive is usually included in the power supply and motor control system, it can also be classified as a broad power management chip. As the three-electric system of new energy vehicles is increasingly valued, this chip has also become a hot track.

As a buffer circuit between low-voltage controllers and high-power circuits, gate drivers can achieve more efficient on and off of power devices. Traditional gate drivers usually require a large system area and additional components to achieve EMC compliance and meet safety requirements. The isolated gate driver package using new technology and process technology is small in size, integrates isolated power supplies and related passive components, reduces system design complexity and the need for additional design resources, and is one of the current development trends.

Thanks to the development of electrification, networking and intelligence, more and more power chips are used in single vehicles. It is understood that an ordinary new energy vehicle uses more than 100 power chips. According to third-party data, the global automotive power management chip market size will be about US$1.92 billion in 2023, and it is expected to reach US$2.14 billion in 2025. In terms of gate drive, the gate driver market value is US$1.73 billion in 2021, and it is expected to reach US$2.7 billion in 2027, with a compound annual growth rate of 7.9%. The application with the highest growth rate during this period is electric vehicles, which account for 32%.

It can be said that automobiles have become the application field with the broadest market prospects for power management chips.

Back to the domestic situation, as domestic new energy vehicles continue to improve in terms of battery life and charging, China's mainstream car companies have begun to deploy high-voltage platforms, starting from 400V platforms to 800V platforms. This will inevitably give rise to more demand for automotive-grade power supplies and driver chips, and is expected to usher in a higher growth rate than the global market.

However, due to high technical barriers and high requirements, difficulty and long cycle for automotive certification, there are not many domestic companies that can supply automotive-grade power supplies and driver chips, and their mass production capacity is limited. Even after the automotive "chip shortage" from 2021 to 2022, the participation of domestic manufacturers is still very limited.

Founded in 2013, Nanochip, after continuous investment in research and development, finally broke the foreign monopoly on automotive-grade power supplies and driver chips. Its products not only passed the AEC-Q100 automotive chip certification, but also strictly followed the automotive process and automotive control system from product definition and development to wafer packaging and delivery.

It is understood that Nanochip's automotive-grade chips have been mass-installed in a large number of mainstream vehicle manufacturers/first-tier automotive suppliers, and it has also achieved great breakthroughs in automotive-related businesses in the past two years: the shipment volume in the automotive electronics field in 2023 has reached 164 million units, and the revenue share of the automotive electronics field is 30.95%, an increase of about 7.82 percentage points from the previous year. In the first quarter of 2024, the proportion of automotive electronics will further increase to 35.63%.

Naxin Micro's power management chip layout

Previously, most people knew about Naxinwei mainly based on its strong strength in signal chains and sensors. In the "three-wheel drive" product layout emphasized by Naxinwei in recent years, power management chips have become a key link. In areas that have been difficult to achieve with domestic alternatives in the past, Naxinwei has achieved automotive-grade breakthroughs.

In the current power management product layout of Naxinwei, we can see five major categories of products: gate drive, motor drive, LED drive, power supply and power path protection. Unlike most domestic power management chip companies that focus on the consumer electronics field, automotive electronics, as the business focus of Naxinwei, is placed first.

So, how is the development of Nanochip's power management products in the automotive field?

According to Naxin Micro, Naxin Micro focuses on the automotive field. In terms of gate drive, the company has completed the upgrading of industrial and automotive isolation drive products in 2023, based on the first launch of automotive-grade products in 2021. It has now firmly occupied the leading market position in China. At the same time, it has made breakthrough progress in the field of functional safety gate drive for automotive main drives, becoming the first company in China to launch such products. It is worth noting that Naxin Micro's latest single-channel high-speed gate driver chip is designed specifically for driving GaN HEMT (high electron mobility transistor) in LiDAR transmitters, and can cope with various challenges in LiDAR applications.

In the direction of motor drive, the new multi-channel pre-drive motor drive and stepper motor drive products launched by Naxinwei have also been designated by many domain control and body control Tier-1. It is understood that the highly integrated NSUC1610 small motor drive SoC launched by Naxinwei integrates ARM core MCU, 4-channel half-bridge driver and LIN interface on a single chip, realizing efficient and real-time control of small motor applications. It is widely used in applications such as electronic expansion valves, AGS and electronic air outlets in the thermal management system of new energy vehicles.

In terms of LED driver, power supply and power path protection, Naxinwei has also made significant breakthroughs:

In the direction of LED driving, Naxinwei has completed the mass production of automotive-grade through-the-taillight LED driving products, and has successfully achieved customer introduction in the taillight market. The related product series covers single-channel, three-channel, and 16 and 24-channel LED driving products for through-the-light scenarios. Its excellent performance and stability have been unanimously recognized by the market.

In terms of power supply, Naxinwei has launched a low-power LDO, which is designed specifically for automotive battery-powered application scenarios. It has the advantages of small size, high precision, low noise, and low static power consumption. It is very suitable for automotive applications with high standby power consumption requirements. It can power the MCU and CAN/LIN transceiver in the standby system to achieve the purpose of saving power and extending battery life.

In terms of power path protection, Naxin Micro's automotive-grade intelligent high-side and low-side switches cover different combinations of Ron and number of channels, suitable for driving various load types such as resistive, capacitive, and inductive, and support complete diagnostic protection functions. It is understood that Naxin Micro's intelligent low-side switch has passed the AEC-Q100 automotive certification, and the first high-side switch product has been introduced to leading automotive customers, and is expected to be mass-produced this year.

We can see that as a domestic analog chip company, Naxinwei has not only achieved domestic substitution in signal chains and sensor products in the automotive field, but also made power management chips a new breakthrough point.

Final Thoughts

Before 2022, most domestic analog chip companies mainly followed the "PIN TO PIN" approach to domestically replace automotive chips. Domestic companies often did what foreign manufacturers did. This step-by-step approach did produce good results during the chip shortage. Domestic companies occupied part of the market, and domestic car companies also solved urgent problems.

However, when the supply of automotive chips returns to a stable state, this method will find it difficult to gain an advantage, especially when faced with the killer weapon of foreign manufacturers, which is price cuts, domestic manufacturers seem to be at a loss.

However, Naxinwei did not take this path. Instead, it emphasized application innovation and launched corresponding products by understanding customer needs. Through deep collaboration with customers, it closely focused on the development trends of downstream application scenarios to develop more innovative products. Customers are also happy to see such a set of solutions that better meet their needs. This undoubtedly opens up a new idea for domestic analog chips.

We believe that domestic chip manufacturers such as Nanochip, with their clear layout and vision, will become one of the backbone forces in the domestic power management chip wave in the future.