The automotive field has also encountered a chip crisis in the past few days. Due to the impact of the epidemic on chip manufacturers, coupled with the STMicroelectronics strike and the shutdown of chip assembly plants in Southeast Asia and other factors, there has been a serious shortage in the global market. This has directly led to a shortage of automotive chips, especially ESP and ECO chips, and many manufacturers have had to cut production capacity for high-end models.
If you have a basic understanding of chips, you can easily digest chip information from all walks of life. For example, with this car chip crisis, people who don’t know much about it will think that our chips are really terrible and are getting stuck everywhere. But if you know something about chips, you will know that this kind of dedicated chip does not have high production process requirements and does not require TSMC’s 5nm. There are many reasons for production capacity problems. Just like the tight supply of pork, there will be a rise and a fall.
The core of automotive chips is not in the chip, but in the car. The technical barrier to automotive chips is not chips, but automotive-related technology patents. Since Europe, the United States, Japan and South Korea developed relatively early in the automotive field, they have accumulated many patents. To avoid the automotive chip crisis, the focus is not on chip production, but on the innovation of related automotive technologies.
In the face of this automotive chip crisis, BYD responded: Chip shortages do exist in the industry, but the company can be fully self-sufficient and can even supply external supplies.
Is this really the case? Can BYD produce automotive chips? Can it be supplied externally?
Only by having a general understanding of the entire chip industry, and even the semiconductor industry, can we see the truth behind this information.
Because the field of chips and semiconductors is so huge, it is easy to get everyone confused, and being in the chip world feels like being in a maze.
Therefore, I hope to present a clearer picture of the chip world to readers through the “The World of Chips” series of articles!
Specific to this article, I hope to help readers sort out the basic concepts and general conditions of the semiconductor and chip fields, so that you will not get lost in the world of chips! Only then can we see clearly the truth behind BYD’s response.
semiconductor
The first industrial revolution was based on the steam engine, which led to textiles, railways and navigation;
The second industrial revolution was based on electricity and internal combustion engines, driving communications, transportation, electromechanical and other fields;
The third industrial revolution is based on computers and drives fields such as information, atomic energy, aerospace, and materials.
Semiconductors are the foundation of computers and the foundation of the third industrial revolution!
1. The concept of semiconductor
Semiconductors refer to materials whose electrical conductivity at room temperature is between that of insulators and conductors.
Regarding why semiconductors can conduct electricity, I have a very intuitive introduction in my previous article introducing silicon. Interested readers can read it.
2. Semiconductor materials
There are many kinds of semiconductor materials. If they are not classified, it is easy to get confused. There are even many ways to classify them:
1. Classification based on chemical properties
They are divided into compound semiconductors and elemental semiconductors, and compound semiconductors are further divided into inorganic compound semiconductors and organic compound semiconductors.
Most of the mineral deposits existing in nature are inorganic compounds, so the earliest semiconductors utilized by humans were inorganic compounds. Galena (PbS) was used for radio detection very early. If you search for “ore radio”, you will open a door to radio that has been dusty for more than 100 years.
Later, people discovered the element selenium, then the element germanium, and then the element silicon. This started the process of the first generation of elemental semiconductors.
With the demand for high-power semiconductors in optoelectronics, microwave, energy and other industries, second-generation compound semiconductors such as gallium arsenide and indium phosphide, and third-generation compound semiconductors such as silicon carbide and gallium nitride have begun to emerge.
2. Classification according to semiconductor form
Divided into solid-state semiconductors and non-solid-state semiconductors. The compound and elemental semiconductors mentioned above are basically solid-state semiconductors.
The typical representative of non-solid semiconductors is liquid crystal. In fact, strictly speaking, liquid crystal is between solid and liquid. Liquid crystal is the main material of the display screen. Many people don’t think that liquid crystal can also be considered a semiconductor.
3. Classification according to crystal form
Divided into single crystal, polycrystalline and amorphous semiconductors. The inorganic compounds and elemental semiconductors mentioned above can exist in single crystal and polycrystalline forms, as well as in amorphous form. Different crystalline states have different preparation methods, and of course their properties and uses are also different. Polycrystalline and amorphous are more used in the photovoltaic field.
3. Semiconductor product form
Since semiconductors are materials, many products can be made using semiconductors. What specific products are there?
1. Discrete devices: They are independent parts with independent functions and are also an important part of electronic product circuits. When you open the computer motherboard, there are various discrete devices, mainly various transistors.
2. Integrated circuit: Many circuit components are made on the surface or inside of a semiconductor to become an ultra-small electronic circuit. It is divided into small, large and super large. Please note that there are various definitions of size classification. This article is only a rough classification and is not accurate to the number of components.
3. Thin film and printing: Thin films formed from semiconductor materials, or semiconductor materials printed onto substrates. Both photovoltaics and displays require thin films and printing.
chip
Semiconductors enable the manufacture of integrated circuits. The core of integrated circuits is technology, which requires producing thousands or even hundreds of millions of transistors on a semiconductor substrate the size of a fingernail.
Do you have this feeling: It sounds like integrated circuits are chips.
In fact, there is a slight difference between chips and integrated circuits. An integrated circuit is a simple collection of circuits that implements a certain function.
A chip is a product formed from different types of integrated circuits or a single type of integrated circuit.
In other words, an integrated circuit is not necessarily a chip, but a chip must contain an integrated circuit.
To give an easy-to-understand example, semiconductor materials are equivalent to words, and integrated circuits can be a sentence or a paragraph of text.
And the chip is a complete literary work:
It can contain many chapters, which are large chips, such as chips for servers, computers and mobile phones;
It can also include a small number of chapters, which are neutral chips, such as power management chips, radio frequency chips, etc.;
It can also be a small article or even a small joke. This is a small chip, such as a timer chip, a fingerprint chip, a digital-to-analog converter, etc.
Now everyone is clear, semiconductors are not chips, but semiconductors can make chips. Why are semiconductors, integrated circuits and chips often confused?Because more than 80%
Portuguese 
English 
Russian 
German 
Spanish 
Italian 
French 
Dutch