Domestic manufacturers have added battery management chips, who can take the lead in overcoming the difficulties of vehicle specification-level BMS chips?

As we all know, because lithium batteries have the advantages of green environmental protection, long cycle life, high energy density and high working voltage, since the early 1990s, lithium batteries have been officially cut into the consumer electronics market such as mobile phones, tablets and notebook computers for commercial application, and have been widely praised by the market. And gradually become the preferred battery for consumer electronic products, power tools products, smart home products, intelligent travel products and new energy vehicles and other products.

In order to ensure the safety and stability of the battery, the battery management chip has gradually become an indispensable key component in the field of consumer electronics, industrial control and new energy vehicles.

It is worth noting that in the field of consumer electronics and industrial control, many domestic brand battery management chips have emerged in the market, but in the field of power batteries used in new energy vehicles, the abbreviation of, BMS (Battery Management System (Battery Management system) chips still rely on imported chips, and there are few domestic chips.

TI battery management chips are seriously out of stock, local manufacturers let a hundred flowers blossom

It is understood that batteries used in consumer electronic products such as mobile phones, tablets and wearable devices are usually a single series of batteries with only one or two cells. The batteries used in notebook computers, power tools, vacuum cleaners, electric bicycles and smart homes are usually multiple battery packs, composed of multiple cores in series and parallel, but less than in the field of power batteries and energy storage batteries.

For a long time, the above areas are the main application market for battery management chips, but industry insiders point out that the technical threshold for entering the field of battery management chips is very high, as it involves product safety, it needs to be ploughed for a long time, at first, this field is occupied by TI, MAXIM and other strong companies, followed by concave and convex technology, Si Lijie, Zhongying Electronics, etc. gradually enter this field and occupy a place.

It is worth noting that as the mainstream supplier of battery management chips in the market, TI's products have fallen into a serious shortage and price increase.

According to industry insiders, TI's battery management chips are BQ series chips, and the market gap has been very large since 2020, and the product order delivery date has reached 2023.

In this case, many battery management chip manufacturers have emerged in the field of small or medium-sized battery power management systems, including Silicon Lijie, Shengbang Holdings, Zhongying Electronics, Lixin Micro, Hiddiwei, Jevatt, Saiwei, Huatai Semiconductor and many other battery management chip manufacturers.

Set learned from the industry that although the current overall battery management chip market is still dominated by imported chips such as TI, ADI (acquisition of MAXIM) and Bump Technology, domestic chip manufacturers gradually complete domestic substitution in the mainstream mobile phone market and occupy a dominant position in emerging consumer electronics markets such as TWS headphones.

In notebook computers, electric bicycles, power tools, floor-sweeping robots and small energy storage markets, domestic chip manufacturers are also stepping up verification testing and are in the growth stage of domestic alternatives.

According to a domestic chip manufacturer, at this stage, domestic terminal manufacturers and lithium battery manufacturers have a strong demand for domestic replacement of chips, and we will launch their own customized chips for head customers, which are still in the volume stage of their products. the market demand is very big.

Vehicle specification grade BMS chips rely on imports, and ASIL-D certification may stand in the way.

With the rapid increase of the output of new energy vehicles, as the core component of new energy vehicles, the demand for power batteries continues to grow, and has become the leading force in the growth of lithium battery industry.

Generally speaking, the power battery of an electric vehicle needs to be composed of thousands of cells. due to the production process errors and differences in the use environment of the cells, even the performance of the two cells produced in the same batch cannot be completely consistent. In the course of use, the inconsistency will gradually expand, and there may be dangers such as overcharge, overdischarge and local overheating, seriously affecting the service life and safety of the battery pack. This requires BMS to manage the battery.

However, as one of the core raw materials of power batteries, BMS chips still need to be imported.

Zeng Yuqun, chairman of Ningde Times, said in a recent research activity that Ningde era did not directly involve American technology, materials or equipment in the battery production process, and now the only thing that relies on the United States is the chip in BMS, but this process is not high, 28nm is enough, and domestic technology is already available.

Industry insiders point out that BMS chips mainly include AFE, MCU, ADC, digital isolators, etc., and suppliers that can provide complete solutions for vehicle specification-level BMS chips mainly include ADI (AFE products mainly from the acquisition of MAXIM and Linear product lines), TI, Infineon, NXP, Renesas (AFE products mainly come from the acquisition of Intersil product lines), ST and on Senmei and other enterprises.

Among them, the, BMS AFE chip (analog front-end chip) is responsible for collecting the battery voltage and converting it into digital value through analog-to-digital converter (ADC), and then sends it to MCU to calculate the charge state.

In terms of vehicle specification-level MCU, according to incomplete statistics of WeChat, in recent years, domestic manufacturers including Jiefa Technology, Quanzhi Technology, Zhaoyi Innovation, Xingwang Weiwei, Sateng Micro, Xiaohua Semiconductor, Chipways, Xinhai Technology, Yuntu Semiconductor, Xinwang Microelectronics and other domestic manufacturers have successively passed the automotive specification-level AEC-Q100 certification.

In the aspect of BMS AFE chip, the chip has the highest technical difficulty and added value, and there are few domestic manufacturers involved in this product. From the perspective of public information, BYD Semiconductor has launched a car specification-level AFE chip that meets the AEC-Q100 standard; Chipways's car-specification-level BMS AFE (meets the ASIL-C grade) the chip has also been successfully mass-produced.

In addition, Silicon Lijie already has BMS AFE chip products, but it is mainly used in the industrial field. Xinhai Technology, Saiwei and Huatai Semiconductor have also said that they will develop multi-section BMS chips.

It is worth noting that as one of the core control systems of new energy vehicles, BMS needs to support the most stringent functional safety scenarios in the automotive industry. "at present, automobile OEM manufacturers have proposed that the functional safety of BMS needs to reach ASIL-D level, which leads to the need to design redundant functions of BMS chips to ensure the coverage of failure modes and further increase the difficulty of chip design."

Industry insiders pointed out that the car gauge-level BMS AFE chip product verification cycle will reach 1.5 to 2 years, from the product definition to molding at least 4 years, for the demanding automotive application environment, in addition to reliability needs to meet AEC Q100 Grade1 quality standards, ISO 26262 automotive safety integrity level ASIL-D level certification, or will become a hindrance to domestic chip manufacturers to force BMS chip.