April 24 and 26, 2024, is a memorable moment in the field of automotive SerDes chips in China, and both times are related to a company, that is, Renxin Technology.
On April 26th, on the second day of the opening of the Beijing Auto Show, Renxin officially released its first 16G high-performance automotive SerDes chip product, R-LinC, to the global automotive market.
Just two days ago, the startup completed its fourth financing in the company’s two years, and the funds raised in this round of financing are mainly used for the large-scale mass production of R-LinC, the promotion of full-scene applications, and the building of a full-process customer service team.
According to the plan, this product will be officially mass produced and put on the market in the second quarter of this year.
Maybe before I start, I still need to introduce SerDes again.
SerDes is the abbreviation of Serializer (serializer) and Deserializer (de-serializer).
It is the mainstream serial communication technology of time division multiplexing (TDM) and point-to-point (P2P).
It has the characteristics of high speed (Gbps level), low delay and low power consumption, so it is widely used in telecommunications, consumer electronic products, industry and other fields.
As we all know, with the automobile entering the era of intelligent electric in recent years, environmental awareness has become a new key technology field in the automotive industry, and the number and resolution of vehicle cameras are increasing rapidly.
Take an intelligent car that supports NOA as an example, in order to meet the demand of smart driving, it generally needs to be equipped with 11 cameras, including 3 8 million pixels and 8 2 million pixels, with a frame rate of 30FPS.
If the sensors such as millimeter wave radar and lidar are superimposed, the total bandwidth requirement of the whole sensing system will reach 25Gbps.
Obviously, NOA is not the end point of people’s pursuit of smart driving.
Facing the demand of higher-level self-driving in the future, more and more companies are introducing higher-pixel car cameras in order to expect the smart driving system to see more clearly, farther and wider.
Among them is Sony’s 17.
42 million-pixel car camera IMX735, which was launched last September for smart driving.
But what we need to know is that no matter whether it is the current urban NOA smart driving or the future higher-level self-driving for lossless and delay-free video signal transmission, it is generally believed that vehicle-mounted SerDes is the only solution that can meet the real-time transmission of such high-bandwidth data.
Based on this, “according to the estimated sales of 30 million new cars in the Chinese market in 2025, if the average number of SerDes chips per vehicle is 10, the annual shipment of SerDes chips will reach about 300 million.
” Dang Weiguang is very optimistic about the future development of car-mounted SerDes.
Thanks to the development of new energy vehicles, Internet connection technology and self-driving, the chip value of on-board SerDes bicycles will continue to increase, making it a potential rigid demand market.
It is precisely based on the understanding of the market that Renxin Technology, founded in 2022, focuses on the research and development of high-speed SerDes chip technology.
This release of the vehicle communication chip R-LinC supports the transmission rate of 16Gbps-1.
6Gbps, the transmission distance of 15 meters, and the insertion loss compensation capacity can reach more than 30dB.
The speed and process are currently ahead of their counterparts for 1-2 generations. Dr. Liang Yuanjun, co-founder and CTO of Renxin Technology, said: “in terms of technological innovation, R-LinC has adopted a highly integrated interface scheme, which effectively simplifies the network topology and reduces the number of chips, wire harnesses and connectors.
In the aspect of adding serial chips, R-LinC has realized the efficient integration of 2-in-1, and in de-serial chips, it has achieved a breakthrough of 6-in-1, which greatly reduces the complexity and cost of the system. ” Dr. Liang Yuanjun, co-founder and CTO of Renxin Technology.
Picture Source: Renxin Technology, at present, R-LinC has been successfully applied to Zhijia 5V super vision solution.
In this revolutionary innovation jointly offered by Renxin Technology and Sony, R-LinC add and disassemble chip provides Sony 17MP camera module with transmission capacity up to 16Gbps, which perfectly meets the data communication needs of the strongest sensors in the industry.
However, with the attractiveness of this start-up, which is only two years old, it has successfully completed four rounds of financing totaling 300 million yuan in two years in a relatively depressed economic environment.
At the same time, how will the enterprise break through the current monopoly competition pattern dominated by international enterprises in the field of vehicle-mounted SerDes? In the face of the urgent need for high-level self-driving in the future, how will Renxin Technology deal with the challenge? During the Beijing Auto Show, Galaxy had the honor to have in-depth exchanges and discussions with Dang Weiguang, CEO of Renxin Technology, and Dr.
Liang Yuanjun.
Dang Weiguang, CEO of Renxin Technology.
Photo Source: Renxin Technology, interview shorthand (partially deleted): Q: how do you see the domestic replacement of the chip? Dang Weiguang: in fact, China’s breakthrough in the field of automotive chips still faces many challenges.
The first challenge is scale.
Although China is the largest auto market in the world, our car platform rate is still insufficient compared with Toyota, Volkswagen and other international mature companies.
This leads to the problem of fragmentation in chip procurement, which makes it difficult to reconcile the contradiction between the shipments and the scale of chip enterprises.
Secondly, the supply chain problem is equally serious.
The safety and quality requirements of vehicle chips are much higher than those in the field of consumer electronics, so vehicle enterprises have strict audit standards for upstream supply chain management.
To make the whole car enterprises dare to use and willing to use domestic chips, it takes the accumulation of time and opportunities.
In addition, chip research and development is a systematic project, involving many links from early product definition, design to manufacturing.
At present, China mainly focuses on the development and packaging stage, while the manufacturing process still needs to be improved.
This not only involves the process, but also covers many aspects such as equipment, materials and so on.
Therefore, the localization of automotive chips in China must be gradually promoted in stages, which is a process that requires long-term investment, rather than a problem that can be solved in the short term.
We may need to broaden our perspective to five or even eight years to consider industrial development in a more comprehensive way.
In the case of a chip designer, it takes at least two years to design a car chip, followed by one or two years of boarding verification.
Four to five years have passed by the time the next-generation chip is to be improved and launched.
During this period, we also need to deal with various external factors to ensure the sustainable development of the enterprise.
Therefore we need to be patient.
As a member of the industry, we are deeply honored to be able to develop together with the pace of the times and witness the changes of the times in this environment.
Q: design of on-board SerDes chipWhere exactly is the threshold? Dang Weiguang: as a general technology widely used in the field of signal transmission, SerDes technology is very important for all products involved in signal transmission.
Among them, ensuring the integrity and reliability of the signal in the process of long-distance transmission is one of the key challenges faced by SerDes technology.
In addition, the complexity of chip design architecture algorithm can not be ignored, which is a very fine and complex process.
Q: what do you think of the possible impact of MIPI A-PHY on the industry? Dang Weiguang: first of all, Renxin Technology, as a member of MIPI AWG, actively participated in the meeting held in Vienna in March this year.
At the same time, we are also actively involved in the relevant projects organized by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and are committed to promoting the development of the industry.
However, we believe that standardization should be carried out in phases and in a prudent manner.
Specifically, the standard should be formulated on the basis of testing based on the actual application scenario.
For example, in application scenarios such as autopilot or intelligent cockpit, what kind of standards should be met for the test indicators and core parameters of SerDes? this is a key issue to be considered when setting standards.
We firmly believe that standards should be the leading force in promoting the development of technology in the future, rather than blindly respecting all standards.
Therefore, we maintain awe of the standards and at the same time look at the problem with an objective and rational attitude to avoid blindly following.
The innovation of automobile-related technology is a process of long slope and thick snow, which needs to be fully verified and practiced before it can be widely applied.
Q: compared with other enterprises, what are the core advantages of Renxin Technology? Dang Weiguang: frankly speaking, there were no particularly prominent figures in the team from the beginning of its establishment, but why it was able to complete four rounds of financing within 2 years, highly favored by the capital of the industry, and a number of shareholders continued to make additional investments.
this is mainly due to our delivery ability and practical spirit.
The market must be fast fish eat slow fish, technology is very important, but strong execution is the most basic guarantee for the success of the whole company.
Q: how big do you think is the market size of this industry? As a cutting-edge enterprise, how to break the situation? Dang Weiguang: the Chinese auto market has a scale of 30 million vehicles, and each car needs 10 SerDes chips, so the total demand in the Chinese market is 200 to 300 million.
However, Renxin’s goal is not limited to the Chinese market, but to the global market.
But how to break the Matthew effect in the field of on-board SerDes chips is very important.
Although the market environment and economic environment are constantly changing, the market law is consistent.
If you want to change the market environment, you need to grasp the essence of the law.
The key to breaking the situation is not to blindly follow others, but to focus on those market areas that have not yet formed a scale, such as medium-and high-speed SerDes chips.
Take our newly released 16Gbps on-board SerDes chip R-LinC as an example, which has been successfully applied to the smart car 5V super vision solution jointly developed with Sony.
It can meet the high transmission rate required by the 1700m pixel camera in the scheme, which is an advanced product in the field of global SerDes chips.
But we must admit that head enterprises have many advantages in the field of low-speed chips, such as scale, cost, ecology and so on.
It will take at least two years for Renxin Technology to catch up with and surpass it.
Q: in the face of a new round of price war in the automobile terminal market, does Renxin Technology have a plan to reduce cost and increase efficiency in chip design? Dang Weiguang: in fact, at the beginning of entering this industry, we are fully prepared because we want to break the Matthew effect of the industry and arm wrestle with international head chip companies.
Today, we have enough strength to achieve this goal.
Q: you mentioned at the “Xinxiang Yizhuang” 2023 Automotive Chip Industry Conference held by Geshi Automotive last year that you would be number one in China in the next five years.
I would like to ask, what is the next plan of Renxin Technology? Dang Weiguang: standing today, I can proudly say that Renxin Technology has achieved the first place in the field of products.
However, we must face up to the challenges facing the market.
Because the introduction period of R-LinC itself takes two to three years, and it will take at least five years to realize the further expansion of the market.
In this process, we will compete fiercely with two other leading international chip companies in the market and strive to win a third of the market.
R-LinC, as our first generation product, has shown strong competitiveness in the market.
At the same time, we are also actively planning the next generation of products to ensure that Renxin Technology can continuously provide the best product solutions for market demand.
Q: focus on the field of intelligent driving, head enterprises represented by Tesla are currently taking the general direction of end-to-end self-driving, and this trend is bound to reduce the demand for lidar, so as to achieve the effect of pure visual perception.
In your opinion, what changes will the future autopilot trend bring to the demand for SerDes chips? Where is the rate end point of the SerDes chip? Liang Yuanjun: just looking at Tesla’s end-to-end solution, based on the pure vision solution, the demand for video transmission is actually higher.
It is necessary to ensure high-speed, delay-free and lossless transmission, and such demand is bound to grow rapidly.
The currently released R-LinC technology is sufficient to meet the expectations of the market for visual sensor signal transmission in the next five years.
I also always believe that the realization of high-speed technology is not a difficult problem, and demand is the driving force for the research and development of Renxin technology.
Therefore, we will continue to pay attention to market dynamics and respond flexibly to various challenges to meet the actual needs of our customers.
Dang Weiguang: for the bandwidth end point of the SerDes chip, add a little bit.
There are two application scenarios of SerDes chip on the car side, one is Camera (on-board camera), the other is Display (on-board display).
In addition to the continuous attention to the camera factor, the demand for bandwidth of screen terminals is also increasing.
For example, the wide application of super-large screen, the trend of multi-screen linkage, and the continuous emergence of 2K, 4K, 8K and even higher resolution display technology have put forward higher requirements for video transmission.
At the same time, considering the popularity of games on the car side in the future, the frame number requirement of the car screen is no longer satisfied with 60 frames per second.
Together, these factors promote the growing bandwidth demand of video transmission SerDes chips to adapt to more complex and fine display requirements.
The same is true of car cameras, the development of technology is unpredictable, but we always adhere to technologyR & D should not blindly chase after the best.
Although we have enough strength, we should keep up with the needs of the market.
The development of car cameras is also changing with each passing day, and technological changes are emerging one after another.
, We always believe that technology research and development should not blindly pursue the peak of technology.
Although we have sufficient research and development strength, we know that only by closely adapting to market demand can we ensure that the true value of technology can be reflected.
Q: Next, in addition to vehicle-level chips, will the robot field consider involving them?, Dang Weiguang: At present, our main energy is still concentrated in the automotive field.
After all, a company’s resources and capabilities are limited.
However, we always maintain a keen insight and high attention to external markets.
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