Recently, there have been media reports that Ideal Auto plans to establish a chip research and development office in Hong Kong and is recruiting AI chip architects with a rank of 18-19. The chip research and development office is located at the International Technology Exchange Center in Hong Kong and is under the jurisdiction of the Ideal Chip Pre Research Department. The team size is expected to be 10 people.
The above report quoted a person close to Ideal Auto as saying that the Ideal chip pre research department is under the system operation department, mainly responsible for software research and development related to intelligent driving chips.
In response to this, a reporter from the Daily Economic News asked Ideal Automobile for confirmation, but they did not respond to the matter. However, the reporter learned that the intelligent driving chip code of Ideal Automobile is "Schumacher", with a design process of 5nm, manufactured by TSMC, and is expected to complete the chip fabrication work by the end of 2024.
Recruiting chip talents one after another
Although the authenticity of the above information has not been confirmed by Ideal Auto, the reporter found on Ideal Auto's official website that they are recruiting senior AI infrastructure architects in Hong Kong.
According to the website information, the job description is: to gain insight into the forward-looking trends of deep learning algorithm infrastructure technology and build the company's technology research and development pipeline in this field; Define the evolution direction of the infrastructure technology for the next generation of deep learning algorithms and drive exploratory research on key technologies; Responsible for undertaking the company's strategic planning in the field of deep learning algorithm infrastructure technology, horizontally connecting various technical departments, promoting collaborative planning, facilitating the initiation of pre research projects, and achieving goals.
At the same time, Ideal Auto has also put forward requirements for the position of senior AI infrastructure architect recruited in Hong Kong: having more than 10 years of research and development experience in several key technical fields such as AI algorithms, operating systems, or core software in top IT or intelligent automotive enterprises, and more than 5 years of team management or architect experience; Ability to perceive and explore cutting-edge technological trends, design deep learning infrastructure architecture, and integrate technologies from multiple fields.
It is worth mentioning that Ideal Automobile has been recruiting chip talents since last year and continuously expanding the size of its chip research and development team. It is understood that these personnel are distributed in Beijing, Shanghai, Silicon Valley and other places in the United States.
However, Ideal Auto is not solely relying on its own team to develop intelligent driving chips, but is also leveraging external forces. It is reported that Xinyuan Corporation, Shixin Electronics, TSMC, and others have all participated in the development process of the intelligent driving chip for Ideal Automobile, but the entire design process is completely controlled by Ideal Automobile.
In addition to intelligent driving chips, there have been reports that Ideal Auto has also established a chip research and development team in Singapore to develop SiC (silicon carbide) power chips for driving motor controllers. The above report also stated that Ideal Auto is simultaneously developing two types of chips, namely an AI inference chip for intelligent driving scenarios and a SiC power chip for driving motor controllers. But Ideal Auto did not respond to this.
Multiple car companies independently develop chips
In fact, before Ideal Auto, many car companies were already developing their own chips. At last year's NIO DAY, NIO was the first to announce its self-developed chip, the Shenji NX9031, which was successfully taped out in July of this year; Subsequently, Xiaopeng also announced in August this year that his self-developed Turing chip had been successfully taped out; The new generation intelligent driving chip AD1000 from Geely based company Xinqing Technology was officially unveiled at the beginning of this year; Tesla's self-developed chips have already been "on the car".
The 2024 "Research Report on the Evolution Trend of Integrated Software and Hardware in Autonomous Driving" (hereinafter referred to as the "Research Report") released by Chentao Capital and others shows that due to Tesla's successful case, the current industry consensus is that the solution of "heavy software and hardware integration" by vehicle manufacturers is feasible. 'Integrated software and hardware' refers to the full stack development of chips, algorithms, operating systems/middleware completed by the same company, which gives rise to an ecological cooperation model.
The research report states that the trend towards integrated software and hardware autonomous driving solutions is due to the ability to achieve higher performance, lower power consumption, lower latency, and tighter integration. More importantly, it can bring significant cost advantages to enterprises.
In terms of system research and development, car companies need to pay attention to how the cost of the platform continues to decrease. In terms of the hardware cost of intelligent driving (including sensors and computing platforms such as radar and cameras), Tesla is $1500, and Ideal is $4000. "Li Xiang, chairman of Ideal Motors, once said," If Ideal makes its own inference chip, it can achieve the same cost as Tesla because the algorithm is in its own hands, including the entire training platform and training chip.
Another viewpoint suggests that another reason for car companies to develop their own chips is due to supply chain considerations. Previously, there have been incidents such as stock shortages and sanctions in the chip industry, which can have a significant impact on the business development of enterprises. Host manufacturers with intelligent driving as the core have realized the strategic significance of self-developed chips and have begun to promote their own research plans. If there is no external supply of chips, Zero Run Automobile will conduct self-developed chips, "Zhu Jiangming, Chairman of Zero Run Automobile, told reporters.
However, it should be noted that car companies invest heavily in self-developed chips. The input-output ratio will be a heavy topic that these car companies will have to face. According to relevant research reports, taking high-performance SoC with 7nm process and 100+TOPS as an example, its research and development cost is over 100 million US dollars.
From the perspective of economic considerations for car companies, we believe that if the shipment volume of self-developed chips is less than 1 million, it may be difficult to achieve a balanced input-output ratio, "said Liu Yudong, Executive General Manager of Chentao Capital.